


Museum Studies

by Scrib



Category: Batman: Arkham Asylum (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:36:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrib/pseuds/Scrib
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Arkham City. Open a superprison on the Penguin's turf? Not if he has anything to say about it. Strange isn't as invulnerable as he thinks. For this, you need some specialists to stop Arkham City from ever opening. Takes place in the game universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strange Days

Disclaimer: I do not own any DC comics characters and am not getting paid for this. Since Scarecrow's face is never show in the games, please visualize Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane.

Subject: Adele Chester. Tape 1.

AC: Professor Strange, let me begin by thanking you for taking the time to meet with me today.

Strange: Miss Chester, I would prefer to reserve the social niceties until after I have determined whether or not you are wasting my time.

AC:…very well. I would like to request a change in the proposed districting of the Arkham City facility. Specifically, the Bowery. The Cyrus T. Pinkney Institute of Natural History is a historic structure of great architectural significance, not to mention its importance as an educational resource for the community.

Strange: (snorts) An educational resource? The exhibits, such as they are, are nearly a hundred years old and the place reeks of naphtha and formaldehyde. The scientific information which accompanies the displays has not been updated since the 1970s. I believe there were even references to punch-cards as the cutting edge of modern computer technology.

AC: Then you haven't visited it in the last three years. Most of the curators and conservators who conveyed with the place have retired, and many of the static displays have been replaced with aquariums and vivariums. The accompanying texts to more than half the exhibits have been rewritten to reflect the most recent discoveries. In January, the Dinosaur hall is scheduled to be shut down for two years while it's renovated and modernized.

Strange: I begin to detect less-than-altruistic motives behind your visit here today. You work there, do you not? Naturally you do not want to join the ranks of the unemployed, but there is a greater good to be considered here than the desires of one individual.

AC: It's more than that. Oswald Cobblepot is my father.

Strange:…Really?

AC :Yes. And yes, I do take after my mother more in terms of looks, but not as much as you might think. When my mother was my age, she was very beautiful. With makeup, without it, in any clothes, in any lighting. I get by with good tailoring, capped teeth and the right lipstick.

Strange: Yet you do not use his full name. Adele Chester—Chester from Chesterfield, his middle name, and Adele—were you named after the Adélie penguin?

AC: I was born out of wedlock; I believe the name was a compromise. I have few illusions about my parents or their relationship. It was very brief. He had money and power, she, youth and beauty. The oldest story in the world. I would rather talk about the museum—.

Strange: We can come back to that. Cobblepot's daughter, eh? Who is your mother?

AC: My mother made it known to me that I can publicly identify myself as either her daughter or as his. As he was actually the better parent, I chose him, but as I respect my mother's wishes, I must decline to name her.

Strange: He was the better parent? In what way?

AC: I am not actually your patient, Confessor Strange.

Strange: It's Professor Strange.

AC: I know what I said. Professor originally was a religious title, back when the Church was the only place anyone could get an education. 'One who professes the faith', I believe it meant. 'Confessor' is a more apt term for your role in society. You hear confessions, only instead of prescribing 'Hail Marys' and 'Our Fathers' you dispense lithium and Prozac.

Strange: I concede the comparison. Yet it is you who are the supplicant here, not I. You have piqued my interest in your family. If you expect me to give your redistricting request any serious consideration, it falls to you to be more forthcoming.

AC: Then I'm a poor little rich girl, Professor. My mother had custody of me. My father never contested that or balked at making child support payments, and the payments were substantial. Mother was never abusive or neglectful, but it was Alma, our housekeeper, who mostly brought me up. Her-my mother's main contribution was to continually send the message that a woman's worth is based on her looks and that I didn't measure up.

It might have been by long distance, but my father took more of an interest in me. He was very proud that I was reading on a fourth grade level when I started kindergarten, and he really listened when I had trouble with classmates over the years. For example, in middle school, when I told him I wanted to smash another girl's face in, he didn't try to tell me it was wrong or bad or that I didn't really mean it. He asked what she'd done and then advised me to tuck a roll of coins in my fist when I went to punch her, because it would make for greater impact. It was tremendously validating to have an adult tell me it was okay to be that angry and have violent thoughts.

Strange: And what happened when you 'smashed her face in'?

AC: Oh, I never actually did it. It would have been wrong. Hah, I barely remember why I wanted to hit her. I didn't get invited to her skating party. Kid stuff.

Strange: Do you think your father would have been as forgiving?

AC: No. I said I have very few illusions about my parents.

Strange: Are you very…fond of your father?

AC:…(laugh) I just won a bet with myself. Would you make a creepy Freudian insinuation about my relationship with my father or not? And you did. Your next comment is going to be that you did no such thing, that I was the one who brought it up. No, no Electra complexes here. Isn't that sort of thing determined on imprinting anyhow? If it is, then I would have locked on to one of Mother's boyfriends. I didn't meet my father in person until I was seventeen and deciding where to apply to college. Long story short, I chose Gotham University, took business admin and museum studies, graduated with a dual master's, full honors, and now I work for my father.

Strange: So it is not so much his museum as yours, jointly. Well, no doubt with the compensation he will receive from the city, he will be able to buy you another one somewhere else.

AC: Finally we get back on topic. That's the problem. It doesn't matter how much the city offers. Even if they offer another plot with an equivalent building, he won't take it. He is not as young as he was, but he's just as strong-willed, if not more so. As an example, he had this, this plan, like something out of a mid-Victorian novel, to ruin Bruce Wayne financially and then offer to restore the Wayne fortune if Mr. Wayne married me. It took me two years to convince my father it was a bad idea—the marriage part. Father's still out to ruin him. Anyhow, I don't have that kind of lead time here.

Strange: What do you imagine will happen if he does not relocate?

AC: Nothing good. He won't budge, the city will try to evict him, and then…people will get hurt. I have few illusions about who he is, what he's done. What he's capable of. His business is legitimate, these days. I work very hard to make sure that it is so and that it remains so.

Strange: Because you love your father. Does he know about this little mission of yours?

AC: Do you mean this visit to you today or my crusade to keep him reformed?

Strange: Either. Both.

AC: I told him I was going to ask you nicely to spare the museum and the Lounge, and he thinks the latter is rather sweet, like my efforts to get him to stop smoking and eat healthy.

Strange: What if it were you who was making the decision?

AC: I would let the city buy us out—for proper and just compensation, including improvements made to the property, estimated loss of revenue related to the move projected over the next five years, the cost of moving all the existing displays, insurance against any damages-for example, our Diplodocus skeleton cost nine hundred thousand dollars- and an equivalent building on an equivalent site. After all, it's not just the museum, it's the Iceberg Lounge as well, and the Lounge is extremely profitable. The city might well decide it was simpler and more economical to redraw one small line on the map—as I'm requesting now. That's my mother in me, not my father. Sell, but don't sell cheap.

Strange: So you are not quite the misguided optimist you seem.

AC: Oh, I'm downy enough—if you know British slang. Anyhow, it's not my decision to make. The Arkham City Project is likely to be short-lived anyhow, once Batman gets involved- -.

Strange: Why do you say that?

AC: Because when you drop Mentos into a bottle of soda and screw on the lid, it's foolish not to expect an explosion. This is Gotham City. Batman is everywhere and beating up criminals seems to be what makes him happy. Arkham City'll be like Christmas morning for him.

Strange: Ah. Is that your personal opinion of the Batman, or your father's?

AC: I'm not about to repeat my father's opinion. I was brought up not to use that sort of language. My opinion is that dressing up like a bat in order to go out and fight crime is fundamentally the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.

Strange: You don't find Batman attractive? Most women do.

AC: No, actually I don't. He's too...perfect. He's muscled like a god, the part of his face that shows is enough to prove that's he's handsome as a movie star, and he's a flawless athlete. People end up with people who are approximately as attractive as they are. Trying to live up to Batman's standard would be exhausting and demoralizing. If I wanted to grow up to be my mother, I would have stayed in Cali-I would not have come to Gotham City.

Strange: 'Be your mother'? How so?

AC: Beauty is a gift you don't get to keep, but that doesn't mean she isn't trying to. Face lifts. Personal trainers. Breast implants, rhinoplasty, Botox, butt lifts, goat placenta treatments... When I go home sometimes I just want to take off my make-up, put on comfy pajamas, and eat a little ice cream out of the carton. With Batman that would be impossible. Can you imagine him sitting around in jeans, watching a movie and drinking a beer? It's not possible. Besides, one woman's dark and brooding is another's grim and joyless. He simply doesn't appeal to me.

Now I'm going to share with you something I've never told anyone before, Professor Strange. My first four years in Gotham were spent incognito. It wasn't until I turned twenty-one that Dad came out and introduced me as his daughter. He threw a big birthday party for me in the Lounge, and at midnight he had me stand up with him, and he said 'I have a big announcement to make. Tonight this becomes a family business...'

That's public knowledge, of course. Gothamite Magazine ran pictures. No, what I have to tell you about happened in my freshman year. I took Psych one semester, and the TA was Jonathan Crane.

Strange: The same Jonathan Crane who went on to become the Scarecrow, I take it, for otherwise this anecdote seems pointless.

AC: Yes, that same one. He was on the verge of getting his doctorate. I didn't need any tutoring, but we'd at least met and the next semester, I bumped into him in the museum. I was starting up the Gift Shop then-my second major project for the Pinkney. The first was the website. He was there to do visual comparisons on skull capacity versus spinal cord length, as I recall. We said 'Hi,' and got to talking. The next week, he came by again, and it became a regular thing. We weren't dating or anything like it, just hanging out, always in public places. We didn't even exchange e-mails or phone numbers.

One day I noticed the nose-piece on one side of his glasses had been replaced by a lump of poster adhesive, that blue stuff that's like putty. I said 'Come on, Jonathan. Your glasses are broken and they're all wrong for your face anyway. I'm buying you a new pair.' So I dragged him out of the museum and down to the ready-in-an-hour opticians, helped him pick out new frames, and then took him for coffee while the glasses were being made.

Yes, I knew I was being terribly bossy, but he seemed all right with it. Yet the next week he didn't turn up at all. The week after, he came by-wearing the glasses I bought him, by the way-to inform me 'As you know, Miss Chester, I will be matriculating soon, and as I plan to pursue a career in academia, I am afraid I cannot afford even the slightest appearance of wrong doing. You are nearly ten years my junior, and so, as pleasant as these meetings have been, I'm afraid, that for the sake of my future, they must stop.'

Since then-especially in light of what became of him afterward-I have often wondered what I should have said. Something like 'Anybody who sees impropriety in our meeting like this is a prize chowderhead, and you can send them to me so I can tell them so. Sit down and tell me if you think this is too intellectual to go in a general audience museum guide.'

Instead I blurted out, 'But we're not dating!'

'Correct. And no one must ever think that.' he replied.

'I thought we were friends.'

'A p-pretty college student and a nearly thirty year old instructor cannot be friends in this day and age. Goodbye, Miss Chester.' He really did stammer when he said that.

Honestly, between the part of my brain that was going 'He thinks I'm pretty?' and the part which was outraged, I was left speechless. I didn't even say goodbye when he left. I've wondered-if I had not accepted his rejection, if I had insisted on staying friends -could I have influenced his life for the better? So you see, Professor Strange, I am determined not to lose my father as well, and given his past- I ask this: Please redraw the border of Arkham City to exclude the museum and the Iceberg Lounge.

Strange: Interesting. You mentioned there was a housekeeper who essentially raised you-.

AC: Yes, Alma. Alma Hernandez.

Strange: Would you say she was a good person, a moral person?

AC: Yes.

Strange: And she clearly imparted her values to you.

AC: I suppose she did.

Strange: Given your mother as you describe her, and your father as I know him to be, I would say you represent the triumph of nurture over nature. I shall take your request under consideration. Good day.

AC: Goodbye, and thank you.

Strange: It is far too soon for you to thank me.

Notes: Internet searches confirm Miss Chester's story, to a point. Given her age, it should not be difficult to guess the identity of her mother, given how publicly Cobblepot flaunted his affairs. It will be interesting to see how quickly and thoroughly the world chews her up and spits her out once her father's protection is gone-as it will be, when he is safely immured in Arkham City.


	2. Happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adele returns to the Iceberg to report to the Penguin about what she has learned from Hugo Strange

"Sir, 'Happy Feet' is safe back and headin' to da Iceberg," the driver phoned in.

"Roight," Oswald Cobblepot rasped in the rough Cockney accent that was second nature to him now, switching his cigar to the other side of his mouth. Some unknown person among his gang had immediately dubbed Adele with the code name 'Happy Feet' once he introduced her as his daughter, and unlike most codes, it had stuck. After about six months, he bothered to ask one of the lads why, and learned there was a kiddie movie by that name about a baby penguin, so, seeing as she was his daughter… He was amused rather than offended.

He wanted people to keep her in mind. She was one of the distinctions between him and the nutters like the clown and Two-Face, or flash-in-the-pans, like the Riddler, caught up on their gimmicks and obsessed with the Bat. The goal, his goal, was to get all of the money in the world and hang on to it or die trying. Anybody who let obsessions get in the way wasn't serious. "Any trouble getting out?"

"None. Smooth as you could want it. Strange kept her stewin' in the waiting room for da longest time afore he let her in, dat was all."

"Well done," he commented. Rumor had it people had been to visit Strange and wound up going in the doctor's private looney bin instead of going home. "There'll be something extra in your envelope this week."

"Thanks, boss—."

Cobblepot cut off the connection, stabbed at a button which brought up the security camera feed from the lobby, and watched as the doorman let Adele in with a half-bow. She looked quite the Mod today, with oversized round dark glasses in white frames and white platform boots. Grey turtleneck, knee length black skirt, white woolen coat—his colors, the gang colors, allegiance asserted before an outsider, and the whole of it said 'Respect me,' not 'Aren't I sexy?'. Strange might have missed the significance of those details, but he didn't.

From her expression he gathered that Strange had not agreed to change the map. But then, that wasn't the point of going, was it? She passed out of the camera's range, and shortly thereafter, walking in his office door.

"Hello, Dad," she smiled sunnily, brushing his cheek with a chaste and daughterly kiss. "Where shall I begin?" Her gaze lit on the dozen liquor bottles lined up on his desk and the waiting tray of glasses. "Big conference after this?"

"No, a little taste test I want your help with. I believe someone is playing 'Silly Buggers', refilling top-shelf bottles with the cheap stuff and pocketing the difference, and I'm not having any of that. If somebody pays twenty-five dollars for a cocktail in my joint, they're going to get what they paid for."

"If you need me to, of course I will," she replied, "but I won't be that good at judging hard liquors. Not enough experience. If it were champagne, though—."

"You don't smoke, you've a decent palate, and I know it wasn't your hand in the cookie jar," he told her, reaching for the nearest bottle. "Six of these are sealed, straight off the vendor's shelf. Six are from behind the bar. All you have to do is try two at a time and tell whether they're the same or different."

"I'll do my best, but don't give me more than a teaspoonful of each, please."

He poured her two modest splashes of the first pair, and himself two larger splashes. "Scotch," he said. "A hundred dollars a shot, this costs."

She sipped gingerly at the first glass. "I taste…smoke? Or is that my taste buds burning?"

"Try the other," he advised.

"All right," she said, tasting the other. Oswald Cobblepot regarded her face as she thought about the spirit she was tasting. They had the same coloring, dark hair and pale skin. Both of them had rather heavy eyebrows, although she plucked hers into a more graceful shape and her eyes were larger and a clear cool grey, not blue. Her nose was…nothing like his, and the mouth beneath it was soft and child-like.

Ten years had gone by since Adele had become more than a disembodied voice and a face known only from pictures. Ten years, and he still did not understand her fully. He'd let her do what she wanted around the museum while she went to college because the Pinkney was more a tax dodge than anything else, a way to launder revenue.

The website was the start of it, which was simple enough. Everyplace had a website, these days, and it would look odd if the Pinkney didn't have one. Then she said there ought to be a proper museum shop and not just a rack of yellowing postcards by the ticket counters, so he let her have a room and thirty-five thousand to play with, chicken feed as far as he was concerned.

Six or seven months later he was going over the accounts, and there was the store revenue. It was making money. He went in to have a look around, and it was a proper shop, with t-shirts, books, toy animals, a jewelry counter, even a shelf of sweets, chocolate bars with pictures of endangered species on the wrappers and—incredible as it was, lollipops of amber-colored candy with bugs, real live—real dead bugs in them. Crickets, as it turned out. She had an instinct for what people would buy, and how to sell it. A pencil with the museum name on it cost nine cents wholesale, she explained, beaming at him, (and who had ever beamed at him with joy?) and sold for ninety-five cents, five cents sales tax not included, and pencils were only the start. Even kiddies usually had a dollar in their pockets, and those dollars added up, didn't they just.

Now there was a second museum store and another one in the Iceberg Lounge with its own unique line of merchandise, plus a counter of high-end things that someone who'd just hit it big at the slots or the tables might like to buy in celebration. Luxury wrist-watches, diamond pendants, and all of it the genuine article, so even when gamblers won, the casino didn't lose and the people went away happy.

Five or six million more a year was coming in, thanks to her innovations, and that wasn't chicken feed. All of it legit, too.

Adele was honest, she worked twice as hard as anybody else, and loved nothing more than to take on new things. Why was she still there? With her marks, she could have gotten a job anywhere after she got her degree, somewhere more respectable. She could go now—any museum, any employer would be lucky to get her. Was she hanging on in the hopes of scooping the pot when he died, being his only known living relative?

She swallowed the drink, and looked at him. "This one has a horrible burning taste too, but is it…peaty? Is that the right word? And with a hint of vanilla. They're not the same."

"No, they aren't," he glowered at the bottles. "I'm having a word with somebody over this, I don't know who yet. So. Strange. First impressions?"

"Right! Professor Hugo's a stone-cold sociopath. He finds normal, sane people boring, but then he meets very few of them because he keeps digging away at a person's brains until he finds something pathological and enlarges on it. A sadist, but too fastidious for bodily contact. Scalpels, syringes and rubber gloves are more his thing. Also, that chin-strap beard of his is even more horrific in person. He may think it gives him gravitas, but I would call it mesmerizingly awful.

"Seriously, though. Arkham City itself is not his ultimate goal—although he'll have his fun with it. What this really is about is Batman. He's got it in for Batman. Forgive me for being crude in what I am about to say, because I don't know how to put it otherwise. Strange's pretty much got a hard-on for Batman, but he can't admit that, even to himself, so he's going to take him down. He means to make you a tool in breaking Batman, Dad. He wants you in there. I'd even say he needs you in there, because you're the only one hard enough, smart enough, organized enough to turn those inmates into an army. At least, that's what I got out of the encounter, but you can judge for yourself."

Adele reached for her tote bag. "They held my cell phone and my pepper spray while I was in there, but they let me keep my e-reader and my umbrella. I was glad of that. It made me feel a lot safer with him." The umbrella, a smaller folding model intended to fit in a woman's bag, had a very strong taser built into it. A baby version of his own umbrella for a baby penguin.

"And this particular e-reader has a voice recorder built in."

She turned on the device, plugged a small speaker into it, and started the clip. "Professor Strange—," her voice began. They listened through the entire interview in silence.

"That wanker!" the Penguin exploded. "He means to make me a tool! Me! Use me till I break and throw me away? I don't bloody think so."

"Perhaps this is a good time to compare more of that liquor," Adele said. "Dad, I want in on this. I know I've never asked to get involved in this sort of thing, and I don't know how good I'll be at it, but Strange offends me. I want to take him down."


	3. Plotting Mischief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adele shows her true colors in a heart to heart with her dad.

"Hold on now," Oswald Cobblepot looked sharply at Adele, "Just what do you see yourself doing? You may think you're prepared, but for all that you've been about the place these ten years, you've only been hanging about the edges of what really goes on."

"The way I see it, Dad," she replied, her voice low and level. "this is my home as much as yours, more than anywhere else has been my whole life, and I don't want to give it up anymore than you do. If I'm not prepared to fight for it, then I should just whimper off and apply for a job at the Smithsonian or something. Besides, I figure this for being at least a two pronged attack, and my part will be the public one."

He chuckled and reached for a gin bottle full of what should have been Bombay Sapphire and was probably not. "Talk. Do your best to sell me on it, but be warned, I'm not going to go easy on you."

"I wouldn't have it any other way…First thing I'd do is get on the phone with the Historical Society, start raising a stink. Next, Gothamite Magazine. You've been buying advertising space from them for years—full color full page ads, too. I'm sure I could interest them in a heartwarming true story of how the museum brought a ruptured family together and what it means to them, how they found common ground in a shared interest and that it has only grown stronger and deeper."

"What family is that?" he furrowed his brow.

"You and me, of course. An exclusive interview, with pictures of us strolling wistfully through the halls, sharing amusing anecdotes and talking about our vision for the future of the place, a vision that will never be realized—."

The Penguin tossed back the tot of gin he had just poured. "Bloody hell. Adele—."

"I'll do most of the talking," she promised, raising her hands in a deflecting gesture.

"I have a reputation to uphold in this town. Paint me as some lovable soft old gent, and that reputation will crumble. You might as well slit my throat and be done with it. No."

"You're a vicious bastard who'll have a man crippled for looking at you funny, and no mistake." she said, her face serious and her voice a little sad. "Believe me, Dad, I never forget that. But you're more than that. You're a complicated man. You're a bon vivant who likes to see people enjoying themselves, you're a collector with discernment and taste, and you're also quite a decent father. This is like the penguin and sea lion shows and the 'Families Welcome' atmosphere in the main restaurant, both of which were going long before I got here."

"You haven't sold me yet."

"But you're still listening and you haven't thrown anything against the wall either," she held up a finger. "In that interview, you'll also point out that the museum and lounge employ hundreds of people, who'll lose their jobs, and the displays include living creatures, some of which are endangered species and very delicate. How do you move a full-grown Great White Shark like Tiny without killing him, and where do you move him to? I wonder if I can get an orphaned baby walrus somewhere, Tiny isn't cute enough to tug at the heartstrings… But of course you support the idea of Arkham City and the work Mayor Sharp and Professor Strange are doing to make the city safer, it's just that you don't see how to relocate the museum and its contents in the time they're giving you to do it. Or where you'd relocate to. Not just any big building will do."

"If you pile the shite up too high, it topples over on you," the Penguin commented. "Still, if you do the heartwarming and I talk about the numbers—what else've you got?"

"Amnesty International. Get them looking into whether the proposed plans entail any human rights violations. And then…Um. Pour yourself another, Dad, and remember this is the public face of things. There is no more public, more handsome or more appealing face than Bruce Wayne, and he does so love to get involved with this sort of thing. He'll smile, he'll make a statement, write a check, get his picture in the paper, and go home."

Her father's response was lengthy, sacrilegious, scatological, and obscene, not to mention physically impossible. The gist of it was 'I refuse to take part in anything where I wind up having to be grateful to Bruce Wayne!'

"Well, although my negative feelings about him are nowhere near as strong as yours, I'd rather not involve him either. He hits on women like he's doing them a favor. I feel the same way around him that I do around Batman—hopelessly plain, short, and flat-chested." She pursed up her mouth in a sad moue.

While to his paternal eye, Adele did not need the make-up she insisted on wearing, the truth was that she needed platform shoes to achieve average height and nature had not been overly generous to her in the way of breasts. "I always have this urge to black his eye or break his nose just make him less pretty and get me back some of my own self-esteem." She finished.

"You, me, and half of the rest of Gotham—and hey, now. How is it you never told me about Scarecrow dropping you like that?" He looked expectantly at Adele.

"He wasn't the Scarecrow back then, he was just the gawky young teaching assistant in a class I took. I did like him a little. Gawky young intellectuals usually age very well, and he could have matured into something quite distinguished. Besides, I did tell you something about it. I just never followed up when Jon became famous."

"I don't remember it."

Adele smiled. "There was one day when I was all red-eyed and teary, and you took one look and asked, 'All right, who am I having kneecapped, and is it one knee or both?' I told you it wasn't that serious, and explained. You laughed and said if he was scared off that easily, he wasn't worth it."

"Well, he wasn't." Oswald Cobblepot grumbled. "Too bad you stopped me having him kneecapped, because he turned out a right wanker. Gassing up the Narrows, people freaking and screaming—it's all bad for business. Now, what's the second prong of this plan of yours?"

"That's where the gloves come off. It'll be illegal, libelous, dangerous, and underhanded." She picked up one of her glasses of gin and swirled the droplet around the sides of the glass.

"I like it already," he replied. "Take this bit of fatherly advice, though: Outsource the dangerous bits to someone better equipped to deal with it."

"I was already thinking that we'd need some specialists for this…" She stood up from her chair by the side of his desk in order to pace. "After what the Joker did at the Asylum, it makes sense that the next mayor would run and win with a strong anti-crime platform. It does not make sense that the next mayor should be the Warden who failed to prevent or even alleviate the outbreak, when so many of his staff were involved in carrying it out. In no possible universe should Quincy Sharp have become Mayor. He ought to have slunk off in disgrace to end his days in alcoholic obscurity. Instead he won. How?"

"Money," her father stated.

"Yes. Gobs of money. Wads of it. Rivers of it. He bought billboards, radio spots, internet ads, prime-time commercials on all the major networks during the most popular shows. Not just in the last few weeks of the campaign, either, but for months leading up to it. There was plenty of variety in the ads, too. Every week, a new one went into rotation. Where did the money come from? He hasn't got that kind of money. Campaign contributions? Gotham City doesn't require transparency."

"For good reason, too," Cobblepot sat back in his chair, watching her face. He was enjoying this. "The amounts I've contributed to politicians over the years could buy the Institute twice over. They're happy enough to take my cash as long as they needn't admit it."

"I'm glad we agree," she nodded. "His donors are anonymous but I bet they aren't untraceable. Then there's the billions it'll take to build Arkham City and more billions to keep it running. Mayor Sharp promised it would cost the taxpayers no more than the current prison system. That smells worse than the dumpster behind a fishmonger's during a garbage strike in July. It follows that the difference must be made up somewhere. Logic points toward the same source as his campaign funds. We have also been saddled with Strange as the sole authority in charge of Arkham City."

"This isn't something you'd know about, but a few years ago, Strange was noising about that he knew who Batman was. He was going to auction off that choice tid-bit to the highest bidder. I had an invite. So did Two-Face, the clown, Freeze—all the major players who weren't in Blackgate or Arkham then," the Penguin reminisced.

"Really? What happened? Obviously he didn't go through with it."

"He did a runner. Vanished. Scarpered. He was missing for ages. Then he turns up not too long ago, thinner, heavier muscled. Like he'd been bodybuilding while in the clink, only he hadn't been in any prison. Out of the country, they say," he replied.

"Yet he didn't bring up the auction idea again," Adele frowned in thought. "That's suggestive. Either he was honestly wrong and realized his mistake, or he was lying and realized that selling bogus intelligence was likely to get him killed and spread out in pieces all over Gotham, or…he was right, but he thought better of it for some reason. I mean, once a secret is told, it's like a girl being a little bit pregnant. Word gets around."

"It does."

"Maybe he blackmailed Batman—no, what am I saying? Batman wouldn't pay blackmail. He must be rich, though, to afford all of his gadgets and gear. Anyhow, the kind of money Sharp is throwing around leaves a trail. I want a hacker, the best hacker there is, to sniff around until they find out where it came from and who it came from. " Adele narrowed her eyes. "And steal as much of it as possible while they're at it, of course. Waste not, want not."

"Don't forget to siphon off a little for your old dad's retirement fund," Oswald smiled at her.

"Never," she promised. "So—find the money, get the money. But I want more than that. I want everything on Strange's computers. I want to know what he's got planned, what websites he visits, what books he buys.

"While that's going on, it's also time to stir up trouble. Start rumors. Cultivate panic. Spread nasty gossip. Flood the internet with misinformation. Where does the money for the prison come from, if not taxes? Domestic terrorists? Better still, foreign ones with names you can't pronounce. What will they be doing inside the prison? Testing bioweapons? Infecting inmates with diseases and then trying to cure them? What if something gets transmitted to the rest of Gotham? Work the city up into a frenzy of fear, in other words. I don't know who to tap for the hacking, but for the fear campaign I'd like to call on Jonathan. He should know how to do it if anyone does—but he'll have to leave the fear gas at home. I'd tell him it was a challenge to see what he can do without relying on psychotropic drugs."

"Roiiiight," her father drew out the word. "This wouldn't be because you'd like to see him again?"

"No. I have not been impressed by his recent career or accomplishments, and I don't think I could get involved with someone I can't respect. Nor do I fancy taking him on as a fixer-upper project."

That made the Penguin laugh. "Do you know where he is right now?"

"No idea," His daughter shrugged.

"Nor do I, but I can put the word out. As far as your hacker goes, back when the Riddler was still Eddie Nashton, before he crossed paths with Batman, there wasn't a better one. Too good, maybe. He doesn't have to earn a living ever again, so now he's gone all obsessed and spends his time making these trophy things and working out how to stump the Bat. The police nabbed him the night Arkham went down, but he escaped in all the ruckus. I know where he's gone to ground, though."

"Splendid!"

"It's you who'll have to keep him on task, though. And Scarecrow as well." He watched her carefully.

"Me?"

"Yes. This is your plan, and you're going to see it through or see it fail. I'll do the magazine article, and you can call on me for advice, but that's as far as I go." He reached for a fresh cigar, unwrapped it, and nipped the end off.

"But—I'd thought—I don't think I can."

"You mean you don't know if you can. I don't know either. What I do know is, I'm not a young man. I'm not going to be around forever."

"Dad—." Her expression was stricken.

"It's just the truth, my girl. You've got a choice to make. Are you going to step up and take over the business—and I mean all of it—or not? Are you going to be tough enough to take on this town and this lot here?" His gesture encompassed the Lounge and his gang of thugs.

"Because you can't rely on their loyalty based just on how they act now, with me to keep them in line. If you wait until I'm gone to try and win their respect, it'll be too late. All right, maybe if you were Sofia Falcone, who's six-six and two hundred some pounds, maybe you could whip them into line then, but you're not. You could pick out some lad who's all muscles and no brains, marry him and set him up as gang leader, and be the power behind the throne, but I'll wager that isn't what you want. It isn't what I'd want for you.

"You've got to grow into it now, become a player in your own right. Or apply for that job at the Smithsonian you were talking about, get out of town, start building a life and a name for yourself that doesn't rely on being the 'Baby Penguin.'"

Today she had a short, chic crop, but only a few months before, her hair had been long enough to put up in a chignon. Then one terrible night, one of Two-Face's goons came into the Lounge, right up to his table, and handed him a large envelope full of something soft that rustled. He'd opened it, and it was full of hair—Adele's hair, still smelling of her favorite perfume. Then he'd found a file she left on his computer in case something happened to her, one which began with the words, 'I always knew it would all have to be paid for, and what form the payment would take.' and ended with 'even if it was all make-believe,you were the father my heart always longed for. I love you, Dad.'

It took a few days to sort it all out and get her back safe and sound, during which he'd swallowed a great lump of pride and asked Batman for help, because although the Bat was a great better-than-thou bully and a pain in everybody's arse, he, Oswald Cobblepot, knew that Batman would not say no, and that he would get her back alive. And Batman had, although by that time, Adele had mostly rescued herself. (He was very proud of her.)

After that, father and daughter had sat down and said a lot of things they should probably have said years before, and sorted out matters, which was how they'd gotten to the point they were at now.

"This plan you've worked out strikes me as being a good way to find out what you're made of." he concluded. "It's up to you, though. What do you say?"


	4. Before Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adele, meet Edward Nigma. Edward, meet Adele Chester.

The next day:

Someone was knocking on his door.

Nobody ever knocked on his door.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. Nobody he wasn't expecting, such as minions delivering groceries or supply shipments, ever knocked on his door. The Dork Knight wouldn't bother knocking, and while the police would knock, they'd also yell, 'This is the police! Open up!' So who ever this was, it could be nobody he wanted or needed to see. Plus he'd fallen asleep in his computer chair again, which always left him with a sore neck and he hadn't brushed his teeth so his mouth tasted foul. But there was someone at the door, and they weren't going away.

Edward Nigma, otherwise known as Enigma, also AKA The Riddler, originally Edward Nashton, pushed himself out of his chair and staggered through the maze of works in progress to his door.

Coffee. I need coffee, he thought as he opened the door. "What do you want?" he demanded peevishly of the person in front of him and then blinked as his eyes delivered important if faulty information to his brain, because standing right there on his doorstep was Audrey Hepburn.

Of course it wasn't actually Audrey Hepburn, because if it was, she would be much, much older, not to mention dead. (The woman in front of him was in her mid-twenties and to all appearances, alive). She didn't even look that much like Audrey Hepburn, but she was definitely the same type.

"Ooh," Her eyes met his, and she dimpled up in an impish smile. "Look at those cheekbones. I could cut myself slapping that face. Shall I try?"

He took a step back, his hand flying up involuntarily to shield him should she attack. There were a lot of fierce women on both sides of the law in the hero/villain business, and sooner or later, they all tried to hit him, if only to shut him up. "What? No!"

"I was quoting Irene Adler when she meets Sherlock in 'A Scandal in Belgravia'. I thought Benedict Cumberbatch had the best cheekbones known to humanity, but yours bump his down the list. Oh. You still don't…I'm sorry. Of course someone with an intellect like yours wouldn't bother with popular culture or watch television shows. I'm talking about a BBC show called Sherlock, which explores the question 'What if Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson lived in contemporary London?' Forget I mentioned it."

"Uh, whoever you are, you have the wrong apartment." he managed, the words fighting their way up through a sleep-fogged mind. Plus, his most basic biological programming performed a fast potential mate assessment (shiny hair plus smooth skin plus .71 hip-waist ratio equals young, healthy and fertile. Prolonged eye contact equals interest. Smiling means she might like you!), reached a certain conclusion, and started flooding his brain with neurohormones related to pair-bonding, further complicating his reactions. Not to mention confusing him.

"Not if you're the Riddler, and if you're not I think he's going to be mad at you for stealing his clothes," she pointed to his question-mark print shirt.

He glanced down at himself, seeing the soup stains left behind from slurping down too-hot ramen, realized his stubble was approaching the length of a young beard and that he didn't remember when he last showered. Or slept in a bed. At least his fly was zipped. Meanwhile, she looked as fresh and sharp as an icicle in her neat white coat and slim blue dress. "Uh—then what do you want?"

"I'm here to invite you to the Iceberg Lounge at midnight tonight for a meeting at the owner's table. My name's Adele Chester, by the way. I've been wanting to meet you for the longest time." She dimpled again and her eyes danced as she scanned his face. "I understand that not only do you read books, you don't have to move your lips or drag your finger underneath the lines as you go. What does a vegetarian zombie groan for?"

"What?"

"It's a riddle. You're always making them up for other people, so I thought you might like it if someone returned the favor. What does a vegetarian zombie groan for?" she repeated.

"I don't know. Because it's hungry?" he asked, for the first time realizing what his targets must go through when they were suddenly blindsided by one of his challenges. He was decidedly off his game.

"Errrrrrt," she imitated a game-show buzzer. "Wrong. Want to try again?"

"Umm….Do you—do you work for the Penguin?" he asked. If she did, she was unexpectedly modest in her dress and underendowed by the standards of Cobblepot's usual female henchmen. Or would that be henchwomen? Henchwenches?

"Yes. I pretty much run the museum these days, among other things."

A vague memory, several years old, unscrolled in his mind, a conversation between petty thugs.

Didja hear what happened at the Iceberg the odder night?/no, what happened?'/there's this kid hanging around the museum doin stuff the last few years, see? real quiet, never raises her voice to nobody, answers to Cobblepot alone well it turns out she's his daughter it was her twenty-first birthday, so he threw this big bash and it was free champagne all night/his daughter? huh, if she looks anything like her old man, I gotta say, poor kid, cause he's sure an ugly little turd!/nah, she's kinda cute got that wavy look goin, ya know?/ wavy? what are you talking about?/you know, like that model Johnny Depp was goin with a while back Kate Moss/you mean waifish?/yeah, dat's it/so she don't look nothing like him?/she does, kinda. ya gotta see them together to spot the resemblance ya know like that Aerosmith guy Steven Tyler an his daughter Liv Tyler, the one that was in them Ring movies/the one where you see the video and die in seven days?/nah, the ones with the hobbits and shit/I never saw them

"Wait—you're his daughter, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," she nodded. "I can say the alphabet backwards. Can you? Zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba." She reeled it out swiftly, without a hitch and without the alphabet sing-song.

He waved a hand, "Wait, what? Is that what a vegetarian zombie groans for?"

"No. Most people learn by rote and can't spontaneously reverse the letters. Cognitive inertia. I like your glasses, by the way. They really suit you. Was your girlfriend involved in the selection process, or is your taste naturally that good?"

"Thanks, I think. I don't have a girlfriend," he said. What time was it? Granted, day and night held little meaning for one driven by genius, but it certainly seemed too damn early. "What does the Penguin want to see me for?"

"I never said he did. I'm here on my own behalf," she gave him that impish smile again. "But Dad will be there. He always is."

"Then what is it about?"

"Right now I think you're a couple of grandes low on coffee and won't process well until you're topped up. I'd rather discuss it tonight. Do you like champagne? I adore it."

"I—it's all right, I guess."

"Then I'll pick out a good one and make sure they chill it properly. Just to clarify matters…you don't have a boyfriend either, do you? You're the married-to-his-work kind, I'm guessing." She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Yes!" What was wrong with his brain?

"That's a pity," she nodded, narrowing her eyes and looking thoughtful.

"You're trying to influence me by flirting with me, aren't you?"

"Ah! You noticed!" The dimples appeared again. "Is it working?"

"No!"

"Drat. I must work on my technique. Not having cleavage puts me at a disadvantage." She glanced down at herself.

"So when I don't show up, what are you going to do?" he challenged her.

"What would I do?" She looked at the ceiling. "I would ask my father's advice on what to do."

The Riddler thought about that for a moment. He and the Penguin had been colleagues, or more accurately, associates for years, although he hadn't done any work for the man lately. Then he looked at Adele, at the coat and dress which were very simple in the way that only very expensive clothing can be, and at her diamond earrings, her accessories, and her bright eyes.

If he were Cobblepot, and he had somehow managed to father a daughter this attractive, charming, and intelligent (although nothing like the brilliant mind he, Edward Nygma himself, possessed) and a man stood her up, what would it occur to him to do? 'Kneecap the bastard,' sprang to mind. He was fond of his kneecaps. They had served him well for nearly thirty-three years.

"I believe you said midnight?" he asked.

"Midnight," she confirmed, and half- turned to go. Then she turned back again. "Grains," she said, dragging the 'a' and 's' out spookily, as in 'Graaaaainsss'. "That's what a vegetarian zombie groans for. Anyhow, I must go. I have a video conference about a baby walrus I can't miss. I'll see you tonight. Good bye."

"Uh—bye. Wait—how did you bypass the security measures?"

"Let's save that for tonight, when the conversation flags," she called behind her.

Left alone, Edward Nigma took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, and rubbed his hand over his face. "What just happened?" he asked himself. "Zxy—no. Zyxuvw. Ah, hell. Zyxwvust. Damn it! Wait, maybe I can use it in some trap…" His bristled chin bothered him, and if he were going to the Iceberg, he really ought to be clean and dressed appropriately. But before he took care of any of that, he first looked up who Benedict Cumberbatch was, just out of curiosity.


	5. Death Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adele is not Edward Nygma's type. He, however, is hers.

On the one hand, it was nice to get out in the fresh air once in a while, to contemplate an offer of work that wasn't all about Batman—or probably wasn't, Edward mentally amended. He had no idea what Adele Chester had in mind, but…she'd invited him for business. This wasn't social and it wasn't anything more.

He did not have the best track record when it came to the female of the species. Fifteen years ago, when he was going on eighteen, if an attractive woman invited him anywhere for champagne at midnight, he would have felt like James fucking Bond. And that was after years of public school, and all the girls for whom he'd written entire papers, done ninety percent of the work on joint projects, set up computers…and for what? A breathless 'Thank you, Eddie. You're such a good friend.'

It hadn't been much different in college, except that they also wanted help moving. Oh, he'd had a few girlfriends along the way, nothing permanent. Nobody really special. Then he'd got hired as head of the GCPD's Cyber Crimes department, and shortly thereafter, gone over to the Dark Side as much out of boredom as anything else.

Shortly thereafter, he learned that, wow, there were supervillain groupies, but they weren't the sort of girl you exactly wanted to give keys to your secret hideout. For one thing, they liked to overshare on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He might as well put up a huge green neon question mark over his hideout. So he tried dating women who were already in the business—a tactical mistake, as out-and-out female criminals had no compunction against stealing his share of heist money, falling in love with the Bat and defecting, swiping his ideas and his gadgets, and finally, resorting to violence just to shut him up. Given this dismal life-long losing streak, the last thing he wanted was to get mixed up in the Penguin's daughter's schemes.

Besides, she wasn't his type. He didn't have a type, but if he did, it would be someone like Catwoman, who had a figure and wasn't afraid to show it off. In fact, he was making a series of Riddler trophies in pink and coming up with riddles that, if solved correctly, would lead her to a romantic dinner with him, hopefully the first of many.

Although, for the sake of keeping in good with Cobblepot, (and keeping his kneecaps intact), he was prepared to show up and hear Adele out. Her father was useful; no sense in provoking conflict. Such was his state of mind when he arrived at the Iceberg Lounge, entering via the discreet concealed door which led directly to the other VIP room, the one where the law-abiding never set foot or even dreamed existed. The owner's table was central, of course, and four chairs were arranged around it. Two were already occupied, by the Penguin and his daughter. There was also an ice bucket to the side with a bottle keeping cold in it.

Adele looked like a woman who invited a man to partake of champagne and criminal conspiracy at midnight ought to look, if she possibly can. Wearing a smoky silver dress and red lipstick, she lifted a flute glass to her lips and sipped, smiling at something her father said. Then she caught sight of him, and her smile's wattage jumped. "Hel-lo. You clean up rather nicely," she commented.

"Uh, thank you," he said, and to the Penguin he nodded, "Cobblepot."

"Riddler," the older man returned the nod. "Sit down, make yerself at home. There's a fourth coming to our little party, and I've just got to go check if my lads have found him yet." He hoisted himself to his feet and lumbered off.

"Fourth?" he asked Adele as he took his seat.

She nodded. "Scarecrow. Would you care for some champagne, or would you prefer something else? I don't want to impose my tastes on you."

"Champagne is fine, and besides, your wait staff looks to be sweating bullets tonight." He glanced around.

"We're down by two bartenders and a beverage manager," she explained, sliding a glass across the table to him. "One of the bartenders and the manager were running a swindle on both Dad and the customers. They've been terminated. The other failed to notice what was going on, so he was let go with just a black eye." The meaningful eyeflick she gave him with the word 'terminated' said it all.

She went on. "I've become hardened over the last ten years. Once I would have been half-sick over their deaths; now I regard it as if they decided to commit suicide in a very unpleasant way. Who am I to tell anyone how they ought to die? It's not as if my father hasn't been on the scene long enough for everyone to know what will happen if they try scamming him."

"Quite," he said, and changed the subject. "I watched the first episode of that 'Sherlock' show."

"What did you think of it?" She looked very pleased and straightened up in her chair, resting her elbows on the table and folding her hands under her chin.

"It was so laden with errors as to be ridiculous…" He went on to tear 'A Study in Pink' apart in detail. "…not to mention that Scotland Yard calling in an amateur for help is as bad as Commissioner Gordon calling in the Bat." He settled back, confident that his rapier-like wit had punctured her balloon of fandom.

"I agree with you completely," she nodded, smiling brightly at him. "Nobody even wonders how those people got to all the out-of-the-way places where they supposedly went to commit suicide. But there were questions you failed to ask."

"Which is?"

"Were you entertained? Did it capture the essence of Holmes and Watson in the modern world?"

"I—well, yes. It did. It was fun spotting all the allusions and references to the original stories," he admitted. "I loved them when I was a kid. The super-smart guy being the hero, I guess."

"Right! Be he never so humble, there's no police like Holmes." Those dimples of hers were unfair, he decided. "That show had me from the line 'Afghanistan or Iraq?' Don't bother with 'The Adventure of the Blind Banker', it's terrible—their Chinatown episode. I'm convinced it's written into the code of series television that every cop, forensics or crime show has to have an episode set in Chinatown, or the equivalent—Koreatown or Little Tokyo, whatever nationality they choose—where they objectify all the worse clichés about Asian people. There can be no other explanation. In fact, skip 'The Hounds of Baskerville', too—."

"I'm not smitten with you. You can flirt all you want, and it won't change anything. You're not my type," he interrupted her. Something in his brain seemed to be shorted out that day, starting from when she knocked on his door. Ordinarily he would have come up with half a dozen witty and cutting remarks intended to impress on her just how superior his intellect was, not to mention any number of riddles to baffle her. (There was still a part of his brain that didn't want him to die alone and childless, and that part had put a governor on his tongue.)

"What?" she stopped.

"I don't want there to be any misunderstandings. You aren't my type, and whatever this scheme is, if we work together—."

"Ah," she regarded him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she nodded. "Good. I'm glad you're not smitten with me. Nothing could be better. This way you'll be able to focus more fully on the task at hand. I dislike misunderstandings just as much as you do. It's a pity, in a way, though, because you are my type. Right down to the ground."

"I…am?"

"Oh, yes. Blue eyes, devastating cheekbones, glasses, quirky personality, flexible morality, an IQ which, if measured in Fahrenheit, would be hotter than Death Valley in July instead of body temperature—or room temperature, which is what I usually meet with in men. You even took the trouble to learn more about something I like, in order to discuss it intelligently with me. I'll have to resign myself to the fact that it can never be. Better that it should happen now before I get attached to you."

"I—," He wondered how he could retract what he had said. "it's nothing personal. Women have taken advantage of me too many times…" He explained, and she heard him out without a word until the end.

Looking down at her fingers as she toyed with the stem of her glass, Adele asked, "These girls and women—I'm guessing they were very popular, weren't they? Socially successful, very attractive, and highly sought after, while you were rather gawky and awkward?"

"That's the essence of it," he replied.

"You might have had greater success if you had looked around for the girl in a velociraptor t-shirt whose hair was always untidy and who hardly ever took her nose out of a book. That was me in high school, and I would very much have liked to have a friend like you. We could have talked game design or written a science fiction novel. Mind you, I know I'm about five years younger than you and I grew up on the West Coast, but I'm not that uncommon a type. You can find us anywhere. I'm sure there were always equivalent girls around. Then again, we're not your type."

The playful banter had left her voice. "I am rather more poised and polished these days, thanks to my father, who has a grand eye for style and what will suit someone, but scratch me and you'll find the nerd underneath. Let's talk about your security system now, shall we?"

TBC…. Mild Spoiler: In Arkham Origins, Edward Nashton is, or was, head of the GCPD's Cypercrimes division, and since he was so obviously a computer geek, well—He hasn't yet learned that negging is not the best way to get a girl. The highest recorded temperature in Death Valley is 134 degrees F, and it's not hard to imagine the Riddler's IQ is even higher. An IQ of 150 is considered genius level.


	6. Too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scarecrow joins the party.

Whatever she had to say was forestalled by the arrival of a particularly stolid thug in the Penguin's colors who was propelling before him a man in the incongruous garb of a white lab coat and a crude burlap mask over a pair of patched trousers and rag-wrapped feet.

"Dis is da guy you and youse Pop wanted ta see," rumbled the man-mountain. "He dint wanna come but I made him anyway. Without hurtin' him or nuttin, neither."

"Thank you, Rocco," Adele told him. "That was very well done, and I will tell my father so. You can leave him with me. Doctor Crane and I are old acquaintances."

"Okay," Rocco said, and let go of the Scarecrow, who sagged, rubbing the elbow Rocco had bent up behind his back.

"I'm surprised you didn't just gas him," the Riddler commented as Rocco left without a backward glance. The Scarecrow was one of the few people he didn't regard as a waste of valuable oxygen. Although intelligent enough, however, Dr. Crane's mental condition was dubious at best, and at worst…

"The normal reaction to sudden fear is the 'fight or flight' response," the former professor replied. "A specimen such as Rocco obviously would have a stronger fight response. I dislike being pummeled. However, I seem to know your voice, Miss—" He pulled off the mask, which was askew anyhow, and revealed an unexpectedly boyish face with fresh pink cheeks and clear cerulean eyes.

Drawing a pair of glasses from his lab coat pocket and unfolding them, he put them on. "Miss Chester. This is quite unexpected. You've changed your hair since I saw you last. As I recall, it was quite long."

"You two know each other?" Edward glanced at Adele. Scarecrow wasn't simply looking at her, he was scrutinizing her.

"He was the teaching assistant in my Psychology 101 class," she replied. "The new style was Two-Face's idea. He and my father were involved in a messy territorial dispute. Mr. Dent kidnapped me, cut my hair off and sent it to Dad as a warning."

"Lost the toss, did you?" the Riddler asked.

"No. Actually, I won. Bad side up, and he would have sent Dad my entire head."

"That must have been terrible for you," the Scarecrow sympathized, which was unlike him. "Were you very frightened?" That was the Dr. Crane he knew.

"Horribly," she told him. "Dr. Crane—Jonathan—The second to last time we met—. Well, you're still using the frames, so I know you remember. Did I overstep a boundary? I never meant to cause offense."

"You? No." Was Crane turning pinker? "Q-quite the revere. At the time, I could foresee—Suffice it to say, you never offended me, and my career in academia imploded for reasons that had nothing to do with undue familiarity. Anyhow, at the risk of perpetrating a cliché, what is the meaning of this? I know neither why I am here nor why the Penguin would want to see me."

Then the penny dropped for Edward Nigma. Jonathan Crane was blue-eyed, wore glasses, and had a high IQ. Arguably, he did have flexible morality and while he, the Riddler, would not call Crane's personality merely 'quirky', the man also had notable cheekbones. They knew each other and whatever had happened back when she was still in college, neither of them had forgotten the other. Now they were reunited and…

I finally meet an attractive, intriguing (in both senses of the word) woman who's turned on by brains,which would for once in my life make me a sex god, and what do I do? Do I ask her if she likes Italian food, because I know a great place on 19thSt? Do I ask her for a tour of the museum so I can see what she's done with it? No, first I tell her she's not my type and I follow that up by telling her that essentially I'd rather date the head cheerleader instead of the smart girl and ten seconds later, ten friggin' seconds, Fate in the form of Rocco delivers Jonathan Crane who wanted to get 'unduly familiar' with her back in the day.

Ten seconds! He reached for the champagne and poured himself another glass.

A riddle: What is always too late?

Regret.

And me.

"Ah," Adele replied. "I can certainly enlighten you, but first there is something else you should know. I was never forthcoming about either side of my family, and I know you were curious about exactly what my status was at the Pinkney. The truth is that my full name is actually Adele Elizabeth Chesterfield Cobblepot. The Penguin is my father, and we made a deal back when I was eighteen that if I took Museum Studies and Business Administration and kept at least a 3.0, then he would pay for college, and if I got a 4.0 or higher, then I would get to run the museum when I was ready. He more than kept his part of it."

"And you more than kept your part of it in return," Oswald Cobblepot had returned. He patted his daughter's arm on the way to reclaiming his seat and his glass. "Best investment I ever made. Glad to see you're all here. Did I miss anything?"

"Well, the Riddler shattered my heart irreparably, so I'm joining a convent in the morning and you can say goodbye to ever having grandchildren." Adele waved a hand airily. "So nothing, really."

"Can't leave you alone for one ruddy moment, can I?" he tsked. "You look like you'll get over it. Not so sure about him. He looks like someone dinged him a good one around the earhole. I understand you were one of her instructors once." He directed the last statement at Crane.

"As a mere teaching assistant, yes. She was one of only a handful of students who regarded the university as a place to learn rather than a four to eight yearlong bacchanal." the Scarecrow confirmed.

"I never did care for the sort of gathering where you have to keep a hand over your glass so as not to be roofied," Adele commented. "But you're too harsh on the majority of students. They were drunk on freedom as much as on alcohol, and most of them calmed down, sobered up, and got around to studying about halfway through their freshman years. Speaking of getting around to business, however—."

She reached for her evening bag, which opened up to reveal a top-of-the-line tablet. With a few touches, she called up a map of Old Gotham, the boundaries of the proposed Arkham City outlined in red. "The reason we are here is Professor Hugo Strange, and his plan to turn old Gotham into a prison, including the Pinkney Institute and the Lounge. I propose that we destroy him, halt his plans in their tracks and ruin whoever is backing him financially. By destroy, I don't mean kill. I mean to reduce that contemptuous, condescending son of a bitch—sorry, Dad—to the point where he will have to move to Africa and do volunteer work in an AIDS clinic in order to get any quality of life back."

"Ambitious…Have you ever killed anyone?" Crane asked, leaning and giving her an acute look.

"Yes, actually," she replied. "When Dent's men came to get me, I was at my sink doing dishes. Since I had a knife, I stabbed one of them in the abdomen. He bled out and died in the car. It was a terrible mess."

"You forget about the bloke you kicked in the temple at New Year's, three years ago," her father pointed out. "They took him off life-support six, seven months back."

"I'd forgotten about him," she frowned. "I never would have kicked him if he'd only stayed down and not made any more trouble. At any rate, I see this plan as having two fronts, the overt and the covert…"

She explained her plan to the other two supervillains as she had her father the night before. "Now I do a little hacking, mostly to check on high rollers' finances before Dad honors their signature in the casino or…elsewhere, so I know enough to know my skills are not equal to this task. Likewise, while I do know how to market and manage, I don't know how to cause mass panic. That is where you gentlemen come in. So, there it is. Are you interested, or not?"

TBC.

A/N: As mentioned back in the first chapter, imagine Cillian Murphy as he was in Batman Begins as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow. Evil geniuses have never been cuter.


	7. Irrational Numbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adele expounds upon a theory of hers.

"You posit that the entire purpose of Arkham City is to destroy the Batman?" Jonathan Crane pushed his glasses up his nose and affixed Adele with an azure stare.

"Not the only purpose, but yes, the ultimate purpose." she replied, looping a finger into the pendant on the long diamond sautoir she wore at her neck, and twirling it around. With a gardenia in her hair, she would be the image of the girl in the art deco medallions on the Lounge's walls.

"Do you not consider that rather extreme for the purposes of ridding Gotham of one man?" he queried.

"No," she shook her head, making her earrings dance. "Consider all the effort that has gone into trying to kill him over nearly fifteen years, and the longest he's ever been gone is about three months. The problem is that everyone thinks of him as being simply a man."

"Hey," Edward interrupted. "if that's a riddle, it's my property. What is he, then, if not just a man?"

Adele glanced his way, picked up her glass, and frowned at its empty state. "Gotham… has never been a normal place. Not even when it was first founded. The crime rate here is five times the national average, mental illness is at about the same level, and then you have to consider that it's been that way ever since the start. One of the more rational explanations I've come across is that an eldritch horror from beyond space and time is squatting under it, exuding toxins into the psychic ecosphere."

Her father chuckled, topping up his glass, then filling hers. "Sounds like that old 'ancient Indian burial ground' business hashed up and warmed over."

"What precisely is the nature of the psychic ecosphere?" Crane wondered.

"Unimportant. I don't believe in Lovecraftian Elder Gods, even if there is an 'Arkham' connection, but…Mr. Nigma, you'd know this if anyone would. Is there a word for the moments of icy clarity you feel when you realize exactly how weird existence really is?"

"There are medications that will prevent such moments," Crane offered helpfully. "Would you like some?"

"Thank you, but no." she smiled at him. "I would rather have them and be myself than stay warm and fuzzy."

"Ummm….Beyond simply 'Sobriety', nothing immediately springs to mind," he replied. "Please—call me Edward."

"Thank you-Edward. I never used to have those moments until I moved to Gotham City, where somehow dressing up as a bat or a clown on a regular basis is something like normal. What would happen if somehow, Pi equaled three, instead of 3.14159, etc? An irrational number made rational, and reality reformed around it."

"Wouldn't work," Eddie replied. "Everything numerical would have to be…pulled off….kilter...That is, recalculated to compensate for it. There'd hardly be a whole number left. Hmmm," he trailed off. It was an odd concept, but as a metaphor went, well, when he considered his own life, and how it had changed since Batman entered it-it was not bad. Not convincing, but not bad.

"I'm not saying that Batman is Pi, unless events in the present can affect the past. I don't think that's possible outside of Doctor Who, but I am willing to entertain the idea if someone wants to argue it." Adele looked from one to another.

"Are you sure you don't want those medications?" Crane asked. "They have almost no side effects."

"Again, no thank you. Yes, I am making light of it, and having fun as well, but I am quite serious at heart. Strange will build his prison, fill it, set up his death trap, spring it, and fail. I can see I haven't convinced anybody..." she glanced from face to face around the table, her own face flushing. " I think we need another bottle of champagne."

She signaled to a server, who hurried over with another magnum. In the interruption this afforded, the Riddler leaned over to the Penguin and asked, sotto voce, "I don't think I caught what your part is in all of this."

"I provide the funding and advice when asked for it," the older man told him. "You can't tell me you haven't heard madder. You can't even tell me you haven't spouted madder yourself, so do me the courtesy of hearing her out."

Once everyone had refills, Adele began again, "Let me try this from another angle. We all of us know how very easily people can die or be permanently injured—paralyzed, brain damaged, maimed or worse. Correct?"

"Yes," Crane was willing to admit this. "On occasion a test subject who seems perfectly healthy turns out to have a congenital heart defect they aren't even aware of. It's quite exasperating. '

"After a Fight Club night there's almost always some bloke who took a blow to the head and walks out under his own steam just fine only to turn up dead a day later. 'Subdural hematoma', that's what they call it. Not to mention all the other ways," Oswald Cobblepot mused. "Break a thigh bone and that big leg artery almost always gets pierced. Then bob's your uncle, they're dead of internal bleeding."

"Granted," the Riddler waved away.

"Yet, for all of that, Batman, who for well over a decade has been breaking bones, busting heads and leaving people hanging upside down or unconscious outdoors in all sorts of weather, and he has never killed anyone. Not once. Not even by accident.

"No one has had an aneurism from blood rushing to their head, no one falls the wrong way off a roof, no one gets the circulation cut off and loses a limb as a result. No subdural hematomas, no brain damage, no hits to the chest that stop the heart. If anyone ever died as a result of what he did, or if they were permanently injured—the world would know it. The only thing people love more than a hero is watching a hero fall.

"The deck is stacked in Batman's favor, and I don't think he even knows it. I'm willing to accept that he's trained to the limits of human ability. I am not willing to accept that he's that lucky. Nor should any of you be."

"Why is that?" Edward asked.

"That's why he keeps winning and people like us keep losing," she replied simply. "Whoever or whatever Pi is, it's on his side. Imagine if, instead of relying on the coin toss to make his decisions, Two-Face could make the coin land any way he wanted to agree with the choice he'd already made. That approaches the idea of Pi, but Pi's working on a much grander scale. The only way to approach a conflict with Batman is to go in expecting him to win, just as when you drop something, you expect gravity will cause it to fall down and hit the ground. Treat it as a constant. Anyhow, thank you for listening to my ramblings with such forbearance. Dad knows to take me with a grain of salt, but you two gentlemen and I are not as well acquainted with each other, and you've been very kind.

"Now I shall excuse myself to go and powder my nose. While I'm doing that, you can say all the things you're too kind to say with me right here." She settled a cashmere shawl around her shoulders and stood up.

"No doubt it is the champagne talking," Scarecrow said, his eyes following her as she crossed the room. "Fanciful as her notions of 'Pi' are, this proposed enterprise is…not without interest. Fear-mongering based in media manipulation has a certain appeal as an intellectual exercise, and of course the proceeds would further my research."

"I have to admit, it's been a while since I did any good old-fashioned hacking," the Riddler said casually, watching her as carefully as his burlap-clad colleague, "Returning to my roots could be renewing." Her shimmering dress only reached to her calves, and it was only now that he noticed that not only was she wearing very high heels, but they were platforms. She was really quite petite—just a bit of a thing.

"So you've made up your minds. Good." The Penguin beamed at them, a grisly sight, "Now it goes without saying that I expect the two of you wankers to act like gentlemen, but I'll say it anyway. I don't mean 'Keep your hands off my little girl', because she's a woman grown who knows her own mind and has her own ways of dealing with unwanted attentions.

"Any wanted attentions are something I don't need to know about until she's considering adding someone to the family permanently. Knowin' the two of you, I doubt I'll be callin' either one of you 'Son' any time soon. No, whut I mean is, no experimenting on her. No messing with her head, no fear toxins in her tea, no clever little death traps she'd have solved if she were only smart enough. Bein' my daughter, she can't start small like the rest of you lot did—like I did meself. It's in at the deep end or nothing at all, and this being her first time out, she gets a pair of floaties, so to speak. After this caper, it's anything goes. She'll either know the ropes by then, or she'll be well out of the game. Got it?! Cause otherwise, it'll be to your everlasting regret!"

After that, the party got down to brass tacks, an expression derived from the time when clothing was more often than not made at home from purchased fabric. In lieu of yardsticks, merchants' counters had brass tacks driven into them at intervals for the purpose of measuring.

"…Father and I will be doing an interview in the Gotham Gazette's Sunday Magazine. Don't be surprised if I'm quite complimentary toward Strange. I don't yet know how I'm going to destroy him exactly, I have to get to know him better first, and since I made the first direct move, I have to make him want to contact me next." Adele looked at the time on her tablet. "That's about it for me this evening. Here, Dad. I know you'll be going back to your office. Do you mind putting these away in the safe? I left their boxes open in front."

Adele took off her earrings and necklace and handed them over to her father, who tucked them in an inner pocket, grousing, "I don't know why I give you things like this when they spend more time with me than with you."

"Now that's not fair," she chided him. "I never ask for jewelry. You're the one who keeps giving it to me, and I do love those diamond posts you gave me two birthdays ago. I wear them nearly every other day because they're simpler and more discreet. Pieces like these are an invitation to be robbed and the next thing you know somebody's innards are in the gutter."

"I don't have a problem with that, so long as it's somebody else's guts and not yours." The Penguin commented.

"And I'd rather nobody's blood got spilled unnecessarily. Unnecessarily being the operative word… Good night, Dad." She kissed him on the cheek, and rose. All three men rose when she did.

"Wait," Edward said, starting after her. "Um—can I see you home or something? Where do you live?" He caught up to her at the stairs.

"I used to live in the neighborhood here, but since the business with Two-Face, at Dad's insistence I've moved into a one-bedroom condominium at Lacey Towers," she told him.

"That was the place where Joker killed Black Mask's girlfriend and his body double twelve years ago, at Christmas," he remembered aloud, "The same night I became Riddler, really. Your dad thinks it's safer?"

"Yes. They stepped up security a lot since then," she said, taking his arm. "No homicides since, the views are spectacular, and Dad actually owns the whole floor through a tangle of corporations, so it's rent-free. A sweet deal all around. And it's kind of you to offer to see me home, but also since the Two-Face incident, I go nowhere without a car, driver and bodyguard. I have no objection to having you see me to the car, however."

"Uh—Good… I did want to talk to you. About what I said earlier." They had reached the bottom of the stairs, where she stopped and turned to face him.

Intoxication occurs in degrees. If one accepts that there is no word for the preternatural sobriety Adele experienced periodically, it goes like this: Sober, relaxed, buzzed, sloshed, smashed/wasted, annihilated, hospital, morgue. Sober is easy to define: no alcohol at all. Relaxed, a drinker smiles more, laughs, speaks more freely. Relaxed is social.

Buzzed—they're apt to start texting without self-editing, posting without considering consequences, hitting on people they otherwise wouldn't. Sloshed brings one into the territory of unwise hook-ups, tweets that end a job, a friendship, strain a marriage, put points on a driver's license, sometimes end up in jail for the night. Sloshed requires a designated driver-or better yet, a designated thinker.

Smashed is the province of binge drinkers—heavy partiers, college students, post-game celebrations. Get smashed, and you're liable to wake up with a strange tattoo, or with obscene permanent marker scribbles all over your face, under arrest for being drunk-and-disorderly, vandalism, property damage, married to a new acquaintance, in a pig sty, on the roof… Smashed is amusing, almost light-hearted, until the pictures start showing up on line. Wasted is similar, only more sinister—the crumpled fender with blood on it, the STD infection, waking up without wallet or phone, thrown out of college altogether, driver's license revoked, incipient cirrhosis.

Annihilated is when it gets really bad. Annihilated is when you come to and find you are facing sexual assault charges, or without your panties in a strange place. Annihilated is finding that you backed over the dog, or you gave your spouse a black eye. Annihilated is a career ender, a life in ruins.

Hospital and morgue should be self-explanatory. The man you punched landed wrong and is now paralyzed. You were in a coma for four days. Your best friend wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the car through the windshield…

On this scale, Edward Nigma, not usually social or a drinker, was somewhere between buzzed and sloshed, but under the dangerous impression he was perfectly sober. Adele, long accustomed to sharing a glass or two of champagne with her father every evening when the Iceberg opened, was merely relaxed—and rather more aware of both his condition and hers.

"It's all right, Edward. You need say no more, because I understand perfectly. You couldn't have made your feelings any clearer if we were toddlers playing in the same sandbox and you hit me over the head with your little toy pail." She dimpled up again, damn it.

"That's more than I do, then," he muttered, "Look, I admit I don't get you, but…did you mean it when you said I was your type?" The words came out like glue—slow, thick, and wanting to get stuck somewhere inconvenient.

She looked up at him, steepled her fingers together, and touched them to her lips. Then she let a slow smile spread over her face. "Ohh, no. I'm not making this easy for you. Think of me as a puzzle you have to work out. You never will, of course, at least not permanently or fully, not in a year or ten or thirty. The important thing is that you try."

"You are clouding my brain," he declared. "I don't know how. Ever since this morning, I… Do you know Poison Ivy? Did she give you that perfume? Is that it? Man-trap pheromones?" The real culprit was right inside his own brain, located in the media insula, seat of instinct, which had gotten together with his anterior cingulate cortex and made a decision.

There are several neurohormones associated with falling in love which were playing merry hell with his receptors. The first, serotonin, responsible for passionate attachment, was chemically similar to that responsible for obsessive compulsive disorders, which he already suffered from, and which therefore felt quite familiar. But then there was also oxytocin and vasopressin, responsible for long-term attachment and lasting love, and quite unknown to him. Testosterone was also a factor, needless to say.

"No, I've never even met her, and all you're smelling is Fracas by Piguet. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Because we're at the door." A glance from her brought over the cloakroom attendant with her coat, which Edward helped her to put on.

"No. Yes. I'd…I'd like to see you again. To, ah, to discuss the project. It's likely to take weeks, if not months, and we ought to…regroup, share whatever progress we've made." They stepped outside, where the night was cold and clear, spangled with stars that shone down even on the shabby streets of Old Gotham and on the long black car that awaited her.

"That sounds reasonable," she said. "Good night." Her bodyguard gave him a look that said to stay back as he opened the door for her.

"Good night," he echoed. Something has happened to me, he thought. I don't get it, but it's…something important.

A/N: Fracas is a real perfume which has a name and fragrance appropriate for a young femme fatale of Gotham City. Invented in 1948 by Roger Piguet, and reissued in 1998, it combines white florals like tuberose, jasmine and orange blossom with peach, bergamot, sandalwood and—it smells pretty, okay?


	8. Alien Love Triangle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two nerds, one Maniac Pixie Dream Girl.

Left to his own devices there on the street in front of the Iceberg, baffled by champagne, white-flower scent of Fracas lingering in the air, the complex chemical processes sloshing around in his brain, and most of all by trying to work out exactly what Adele had meant, Edward Nigma opted take a turn around the block first, to clear his head, and then to go home. Or to a home of his, at any rate. He was buying certain properties in the Old Gotham area with the plan to convert several of them into Riddle Rooms to defeat Batman for once and for all, and one of those properties was practically under the Museum. The chilly night and the exercise did help metabolize the ethanol, and he was rather more sober after the walk.

Now, down to the lower level of Jezebel Plaza, which smelled like an unclean urinal these days, a left, another left, around the old Subway station—he had to kick a passed out drunk out of the doorway—but there he was, in his planned Command Central. Turning on the greenish, watery lights, he went to close the door behind him, only to find a foot in the way. A rag wrapped foot, which was connected to a leg in the most disreputable pair of pants he had seen in recent years, including those on the homeless alcoholic camped on his doorstep. The pants were of course topped by a lab coat and finished off with the less-than-fashionable accessory of a burlap mask.

Some tropes are inevitable. Take two nerds-for-life friends, add one Manic Pixie Dream Girl—although in truth Adele was deeper and more complicated than that, and given that this was Gotham City, by all rights she ought to be a Maniac Pixie Dream Girl—and you have the stuff of a love triangle.

"Hello, Jonathan," the Riddler greeted the Scarecrow, blind to the rigid, furious set of Dr. Crane's shoulders and the generally angry body language. "Just who I need to ask a question. What does it mean when a boy, a toddler age boy, hits a little girl over the head with a plastic bucket?"

"It usually means he likes her but he's not socialized enough to know how to express it in a more appropriate manner," replied the Master of Fear, tightly.

"So she's playing games with me…" he murmured, enlightenment dawning. "…Damn, if anything that makes her even hotter."

"Ms. Chester is a highly intelligent and well-educated woman. Not one to be taken in by the shallow charms of a gaudily-dressed college drop-out obsessed with word-play whose line is in unreliable gadgetry," gritted the Scarecrow.

"Who—wait a minute, do you mean me?" the Riddler replied, stung by this verbal barb from one who he considered something like a friend. "That's—I didn't have to finish college, I was getting offers in my freshman year!"

"That's right, and you opted to accept that of the Gotham Police at the moment when it was most renowned for its greed, corruption and incompetence—clearly a case of like seeking like." Crane shot back.

"In order to expose it for what it was! As if your renowned academic career or your professional practice were anything to boast of— but at least you can say you're 'Outstanding in your field'." Edward leveled an accusatory finger at his best—and only—friend. "Or is that 'Out, standing in your field'? And gaudily dressed, am I? At least I don't look or smell as though I sleep on a compost heap. Or worse."

"Gah! Stooping to that sort of insult, are you?" Crane sneered. "That's—you are nothing more than slacker! A dilettante!"

"Not as bad a slacker as you," was the Riddler's reply. "How long ago did you meet her? And how long since Academia bounced you out on your ear for nonconsensual testing of your fear gasses on unaware students, killing one of them? How many years? And you never once looked her up, did you?"

"She was too young at first, and then…It's not every woman who is suited to life in our particular community, and those that are, are usually an infernal hybrid of praying mantis, black widow spider, and Venus fly-trap. Obviously I had no idea that her background and upbringing were so uniquely suited to—."

"To what? To marrying you? What a treat for her that would be! Have you ever even—," Edward interrupted.

Jonathan Crane socked him in the nose. Had they been different people, the fight might have escalated, but instead the sudden blow brought it to an end as effectively as a bucket of cold water would do to a campfire.

There was an awkward, appalled silence. "Ow," the Riddler replied, rubbing his face. "Was that really called for? I'm not some thug you can provoke into pummeling you senseless. Like Batman, for example. Have we descended to the level of shaved monkeys? At least my nose isn't bleeding."

"I apologize. Profusely and sincerely. Jealousy does not become me. Nor you."

"I think it would be better if we didn't continue this on my doorstep. Come on in." He held the door for Crane, shut and locked it behind him. "So," he continued, more rationally, "I've known you for what? Seven years now, when you were a doctor at Arkham, not a patient. Your second disaster hadn't happened yet, she was a grad student, and you could have called her up any time."

He gestured toward the inner door to his command center. It was a mess inside, much like the rest of Old Gotham, furnished only with a couple of folding chairs and a disintegrating sofa of vile hue and viler odors. They took the chairs rather than risk contamination with the sofa's upholstery.

"I am aware," Crane began, "that great intellectual endowment does not always march with an equal social acumen. One so rarely meets a peer, for one thing, and when interacting with one's lessers, one grows tired of pretending to be one of them. It also renders one repellent, but then, turnabout is fair play."

Edward waved a hand in understanding. "Taken as read."

"Meeting someone with whom you can carry on a conversation, someone who is also compatible is…" Jonathan Crane went on circumventing what he really wanted to say, so Edward decided to cut through.

"If you never asked her out, she could never reject you," he said. "Face the irony: You were afraid."

"And you find her puzzling," riposted the Master of Fear. "or so I gathered. Unless you have some other excuse."

"Perhaps—that is part of it," The Riddler thought about it a moment. "And it's not as if she were insanely hot, objectively speaking, I mean I can see that. Not like Catwoman…"

"Personally, I find Adele more appealing and much easier to converse with, and not due to conversational content and depth alone," Crane responded. "One never knows where to look when speaking to Selina—nor to Ivy or Harley Quinn, either."

Edward could see his point. Add in that Adele was friendly, warm-hearted, and approachable—or at least seemed to be—(and won't it be fun figuring that out?), a confessed nerd, and more passionate about dinosaurs than diamonds… "She sure rolled at least a fifteen for Charisma," he commented as much to himself as to Jon.

"I beg your pardon?" the scientist replied. "The scale is one to ten, surely."

"Dungeons and Dragons…what, you never played?" Edward raised an eyebrow at him.

"A snare Satan set for the souls of the youth of America, according to my boyhood church. I still have scars from asserting to my grandmother that yes, I did think that Darwin fellow was right about evolution and no, the world wasn't about six thousand years old," he brooded. "I was not about to stick my neck out for a mere game. To return to the topic at hand…I do not intend to back down and leave you with a clear field."

"After disappearing from her life for so long, you don't get to claim first dibs," Edward said warningly. "Ultimately, it's her choice-so how about this? We each woo her or not as we choose—and we never speak of this again."

"I agree—this incident is embarrassing to a point I don't recall since high school. Ah—what is it they say? May the best man win."

The two rogues grinned at each other. In other words: Game on.


	9. Fancy Apartment is Fancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone pays a visit to Adele's apartment.

At that moment, the object of the two rogues newborn rivalry and somewhat dubious affections was arriving home without anyone trying to kill her along the way—or at least, actively trying to kill her. Gotham traffic was chancy even when Batman wasn't hogging the road. Adele's thoughts were not of either villain and nowhere near love or romance. She was wondering whether she had chosen rightly in taking her story proposal to the Gotham Gazette rather than her first idea, Gothamite Magazine.

Gothamite Magazine is targeted toward households with an income of two hundred fifty thousand a year or more…the Gazette's Sunday magazine is read by everyone from Bruce Wayne down to the homeless who then fold it up and tuck it into their coats for extra insulation. It will be read by more people on that one day than over an entire month. That's what it comes down to in the end…but then again, it will only be out there for a day, and then it's on to the next. Always, there was a trade off.

Yet the superprison was not due to open for more than a year, and the article was only the opening salvo. I'm sure there will be other opportunities to get our plight out there in the news. Provided I can get Dad to hold still for another interview, that is. I may have to get creative…and speaking of which, what am I going to get him for Christmas this year? He already has seven sets of shirt studs and cufflinks, including those two penguin themed sets, and I think Christa's planning to get him another—Christa being his latest assistant. Cigars? Not when I want him to stop smoking! Such thoughts occupied Adele all the way to Lacey Towers, where she thanked her bodyguard before getting on the private elevator to the Balcony Suites.

After some eleven weeks in residence there, the Towers still felt more like a hotel than like home. Well, she had lived in her Bowery flat across the street from the Institute for nearly six years, since she left the University, and for all that the building was old, shabby, too hot in the summer and rather cold in the winter, it had a definite life about it. She was always aware of her neighbors, what with babies crying, people laughing, dogs barking, stereos blaring, brownies baking, pot being smoked—not all positive, but they knew who she was and left her alone.

Lacey Towers was too quiet, too tasteful, too inodorous, too polite. Her old apartment was small, dark, and cramped, but it was right across the street from the museum, and that was what mattered. Here, with more than twelve hundred square feet of living space, as opposed to five hundred odd—she felt oppressed. Solitary confinement, expertly restored and professionally decorated. I want life around me.

What did that mean to her, having life around her? Was it more than a vague feeling that there wasn't anyone at the breakfast table with her, and that wasn't right? She unlocked her door, locked it behind her, and froze while taking off her coat.

Something was wrong. Quiet, still and dark as the place was, she was not alone. Yet the inhabited dark was not so much dangerous as it was familiar.

"I am going to get a puppy," she said, aloud. "One of the small breeds, something short haired, and above all, very alert and loyal. Something that will raise hell when yousneak in, Batman. Probably a Boston Terrier, because they're adorable even when they're full grown without being floofy." And that would solve the issue of being lonely in her new apartment, too.

A piece of the night detached itself from the curtains and stepped into the light. "You play a dangerous game, Miss Chester."

"Do I? Which one?" she quipped. "Just because you are…who you are, doesn't mean this isn't breaking and entering, Batman, not to mention that you're stalking me. Don't. It bothers me. It bothers me a lot."

"You have nothing to fear from me…yet."

"…Yet." They said the last word in unison, he with menace, she with tired derision.

"I don't trust your temper. You are brutal. You have beaten up my father more than once, a man who is significantly older than you, with a congenital deformity of the spine and a bottle embedded in his face which cannot be removed for fear of killing him. Have you ever considered what would happen if you landed a punch in the wrong place? Yes, I know, he's a monster," she said, again with mockery.

"And you're the hero, or at least the protagonist. That's one of the things I like least about you. All you have to do is enter a room, and you become the most important person in it. Everybody else is relegated to a secondary role. It's happening right now, in my own home, in my own life. Who am I? I refuse to be the damsel in distress, I'm not powerful enough to be your nemesis, and I'm sure as hell not your love interest. What does that leave? A minor role for an actress who mostly does independents."

"You need therapy," he rasped.

"After you," she snapped back, looking at the wall instead of at him. "Face it—you go out, hunt down criminals and beat them up because you can't beat up the person or people you most want to. Probably because they're already dead. Accept that, grow up and get over it."

Odd—she'd looked at this wallpaper every day for weeks, at the refined, subtle tracery of matte silver and gold peacock feathers against ivory, and never seen the touches of color here and there, amethyst and tanzanite, lapis and turquoise, peridot and emerald. How very pretty it was!

She could feel him frowning at her. "You met with Riddler today. Why?"

"It was a blind date. Father wants to see me married before I'm thirty," Adele lied fluently, studying the repeating pattern of colors hidden in the feathers. "I'm turning twenty-eight in April."

"…so he set you up with Edward Nigma?" He sounded incredulous. There, she had succeeded in cracking the cast iron.

"He'd rather see me with Bruce Wayne, but that's only because he has a hate boner for him," she commented, throwing out a casual vulgarity to rub in the shock while the window was open. "Hardly a good basis for a relationship and a horrible one for a marriage. For a while there he was struggling with himself over whether he hates Wayne more than he loves me, but love did win. Eventually. Batman…"

"Yes?" he replied, once the silence had dragged on too long.

"Some people have to find their own way to heaven or to hell. Think for a moment about how we met. Try and save me, and you'll end up looking the fool…again."

She was not watching him, but after a moment, the silence was emptier. Alone in her apartment, Adele drew a deep breath. She felt small, insignificant, and so very, very ordinary. And yet I succeeded in bluffing him out with no cards in my hand…

A/N: Hey, another chapter in less than a month! Wow! So, should Adele get a puppy? I'd love to hear your opinions!


	10. Adele Chester, Tape Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange and Adele cross paths again.

Subject: Adele Chester Tape 2

AC: A large chai and, ohhh, one of those big oatmeal cookies. For here, please. Professor Strange! What are you doing here? Silly question. You're here about that article in Sunday's Gazette, of course. You wouldn't come all the way down here simply for coffee when this chain has a location every other block.

Strange: You are most perceptive, Ms. Chester. 'Architecture Behind Bars: The Second Vanishing of Cyrus T. Pinkney.' An innocuous title for such a provocative piece.

AC: I'm braced for my reprimand, but I think we'd be more comfortable if we took seats. What are you having? Whatever it is, put it on my tab and meet me at the table by the window, there.

Strange: Espresso with a twist of lemon peel. (Pause. Random ambient sounds of a coffee shop.)

Barista: Here you are.

Strange: Thank you. (Sounds of coffee shop, someone crossing a room.)

AC: Ah, this is much better, and friendlier, too.

Strange: That remains to be seen. Unless I am much mistaken, this premises was once a hat shop belonging to Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter, was it not?

AC: It certainly had a hat shop sign on it for the longest time, but a few years ago, the coffee shop moved in and it's been thriving ever since. Perhaps he sold it or is leasing it out.

Strange: Unlikely. He is mentally unfit to manage his financial affairs.

AC: Then he probably has someone legally empowered to act for him. Is it important?

Strange: Probably not, but he is my patient. I would not want him to be…taken advantage of.

AC: That is no more than I would expect of you. It's good that he has someone disinterested to look out for his best interests. Now I'm ready for my scolding. Read me the riot act.

Strange: Why do you suppose I am here to rebuke you, Ms. Chester? While I would be gladder if said article had not appeared, I am not incapable of objectivity. In and of itself, it was informative and not without interest and merit...However, having visited several of the sites in person in the course of planning my future facility, it seems to me that a great deal of graffiti must have been scoured away and several tons of trash must have been removed before a professional stager came in with the magnificent chrysanthemums that made, for example, the Cathedral and its grounds so much more attractive.

AC: Of course! Not to mention relocating several individuals who were squatting there.

Strange: And was it the Gazette who paid for these temporary transformations?

AC: No, it was done by volunteers from the Historic Preservation Society. The necessary supplies and hauling were paid for with donated funds.

Strange; The funds being donated by…

AC: The Museum and the Wayne Foundation. Father insisted on not simply matching funds, but giving more.

Strange: I see. Your joint interview intrigued me more than anything else. When last we spoke, you expressed doubt in your ability to talk him into negotiations with the city regarding a settlement, yet in the article he seemed, if not enthusiastic, at least willing to consider it. What changed?

AC: Well, there is nothing my dad likes so much as being ring-side for a good fight, the bloodier the better, except for money. So I pointed out that lawyers are not called 'sharks' for nothing, and one way or another, there would be plenty of blood in the water before the city either wrote us a very large check or decided it wasn't worth the bother, gave up, and redrew the line. After all, battles like these can go on for years and years and years.

Strange: The article presents your relationship with him as being more a friendship than a normal parent-child bond.

AC: The consequences of not meeting in person until I was for all intents and purposes an adult myself. Yes, Dad's my friend. Probably my best friend, in fact. Certainly my best male friend.

Strange: And your mother was barely mentioned, except as a former girlfriend of his who is, I quote, 'a very private person'. That strikes me as a heartlessly casual dismissal of the parent who raised you.

AC: But as I told you, my father was actually the better parent and in any case, it was Alma, our housekeeper, who did most of the raising. My mother and I…I don't think I feel comfortable talking about her with you yet. Let's talk about something else. I know! My father said that ten or twelve years ago, back before he reformed, you were actually prepared to auction off the secret of Batman's identity. Is it true? Do you really know who he is? How did you find out? Did you catch him with his mask off?

Strange: (Laugh) Nothing so melodramatic, I assure you. Let me say, rather, that while I know who he is, I arrived at my conclusion by the application of my vast knowledge of the human psyche and the myriad pressures dark forces that must necessarily have formed such a mind. There is only one man in Gotham City to whom such conditions applied, and he is Batman.

AC: How wonderful. I've often thought I could figure out who he is, if I applied myself to it, but I would take a rather different approach.

Strange: Really? (Chuckle.) And how would you work it out, Miss Chester?

AC: To begin with, Batman is male, Caucasian, with blue eyes, and allowing for the boots, between six feet and six and a half, roughly speaking. He also weighs two hundred pounds or less, I should say. That cuts out a great deal of the population right there. He's also under forty and unmarried.

Strange: I concede height, weight, sex, and race, but how can you be sure his eye color is not due to contact lenses? Or of his age and marital status?

AC: I met him once. Well, 'Met' might be misleading. 'Encountered' is more accurate. He was not wearing contacts, and his skin showed no serious signs of aging. As to his being unmarried—any woman in the world could tell that. In more psychological terms, though—a person who dresses up as a bat to go out and fight crime is not the sort of person to form a great many close attachments. 'He who has wife and children gives hostages to fortune,' after all.

Beyond that, then there's the problem of money. He can't do what he does and have a regular nine-to-five job. Therefore he must be independently wealthy, both because he not only doesn't need a job but because his toys, vehicles and gadgets must be ruinously expensive. He could be some Internet startup billionaire, but he's been at this for quite a long time and he's still youngish, so I'm inclined to think he inherited his money. I shouldn't be surprised if he was orphaned at a young age—a steadying parental influence would discourage such a quixotic shadow career. There can't be many men in Gotham to whom those conditions apply, and then there's—.

Strange: Enough!

AC: I'm sorry. You're angry. I'm sorry… What did I say?

Strange:…Nothing at all, I assure you. I see that I am late for an appointment, that is all. You beguiled me into forgetting it. Until we meet again, Miss Chester.

AC: Oh—Well—if you're sure…Goodbye.


	11. Just That Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adele visits the Riddler in his new lair. Flirtation and revelation ensue.

In his new lair in the Jezebel Plaza, Edward Nigma sat back on the new sofa—the deteriorating mouse-nest masquerading as a couch was gone, as was the rest of the trash. Several weeks had gone by since the midnight meeting in the Iceberg, and he had put them to good use. Now he had computer workstations, a functioning bathroom—sans an actual bathtub or shower, unfortunately. He had to wash up in the sink. A refrigerator, hot plate, and microwave turned part of the lair into a kitchenette, and the sofa folded out into a bed. All his most basic needs met, and if he'd made his minions put more effort into cleaning it up and doing repair work, it was because he preferred it that way, and definitely not because somebody might decide to drop in.

He was still having trouble associating 'the Penguin' he knew with the phrase 'a good father'. 'Greedy, grotesque, sadistic little son-of-a-bitch' fit so much better, after all. The Riddler had read the article in the Gazette with great interest, especially the interview where the two gave the reporter the tour of the Pinckney. The Gazette photographer had worked wonders with lighting and angles (and possibly also digital imaging software) when it came to capturing Cobblepot's image, making him look taller, straight of back, and generally less ghastly. He'd also captured Adele's resemblance to Audrey Hepburn, which had to be a deliberate cultivation on her part, but still, she looked very pretty…

Edward Nigma was cynically sensitive to bullshit, and even to his acute and jaded eyes, there was remarkably little of it in the interview. Had he not seen how Adele and the Penguin interacted that night, he wouldn't have believed in the way Cobblepot complained about how she wanted a diplodocus skeleton for the Institute for her birthday, and not a fancy watch or new sports car, or the way she joked about being scared to tell him how much she spent on fossils at auction.

Oswald Cobblepot loved his daughter and was very proud of her. In turn, Adele was not ashamed of him nor embarrassed to own him as her father. She thought he was wonderful. Who would have thought it was possible?

The Riddler, ignored by his parents when he was good and physically abused when he wasn't, could only wonder what it was like to have a parent who actually loved, supported and encouraged you.

His reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door. Unfolding himself from the depths of the sofa, he first checked the monitor to see who it was.

Adele was there, holding up a molded cardboard coffee tray in one hand and a paper bag that looked to contain some kind of goodies in the other.

"Hello," she said when he opened the door. "I come bearing coffee for you and chocolate chip cookies on the grounds that everybody likes chocolate chip cookies. Who doesn't? They are the ultimate food. Anyone who doesn't like them is probably an extraterrestrial, and I'm sure many of them like cookies too. The cup without lipstick is yours. It's plain black, since I don't know how you like it."

"I like chocolate chip…What are you doing here?" he blurted out as she went by into his inner sanctum.

"I just had an encounter with Strange and I didn't feel like going back to the Institute right away. I thought a glimpse of your cheekbones might cheer me up." She proffered the coffee cup with a smile.

"Uh—okay. Thank you." He took it, turned away to add a packet of sweetener. Again, he was stymied by her presence. What about her stifled his wit?

She looked around. "Nice use of this space. If this was anything like the rest of Jezebel Plaza Under, you must have had a job of it to clean it up so well. Ten years in the Institute, and I'm only now starting to make a real dent. That was not a reference to Two-Face, by the way."

"That's what minions are for," he shrugged.

"Dad says this area only started to go downhill about twelve, thirteen years ago, after Joker's Christmas. Before that it was not precisely upper-crust, but reasonably comfortable." she commented, taking one of the computer chairs.

"Um—as I recall, that's right. So much went down that night, and Gotham North never recovered."

"Neither did a number of people," she commented. "Here, have a cookie."

"Thanks. So—what happened with Strange?"

"I tipped my hand," she winced ruefully. "There's four things Dad always says: 'Never draw against an inside straight.' 'Kicking a man in the goolies isn't as sure-fire as the movies make it out to be.' 'Always take an umbrella, 'cause you never know.', and 'Whatever you do, don't tip your bloody hand.' And I went and tipped it, all right."

"In what way did you tip your hand?" he asked, settling himself down to listen.

"Normally I avoid letting people know just how intelligent I am. Being underestimated is useful and puts people at their ease around me. You're an exception, of course. You'd never respect me if you didn't know. What happened was this: I asked Strange outright if it was true that he knows who Batman is. He said yes, he had deduced it using his mighty intellect and extensive knowledge of the human psyche. I said I had often thought I could work it out if I applied myself, and told him several deductions I had made. I was spot on, it seems, because he suddenly went beet red and quietly furious."

"You've figured out who Batman is?" Edward leaned forward abruptly. "What have you deduced?"

Adele creased her brow in thought. "Were you the sort of child who always had to find where his birthday and Christmas presents were hidden and sneak the packages open for a peek?"

"I'm not sure how that's connected, but yes, of course I did. Not that there was anything great in them…nothing I really wanted. Discount rack clothes and clearance table toys. I wasn't worth wasting any more money on. Why?"

"I did, too, a couple of times. Dad sent money so I could buy exactly what I wanted. My mother, on the other hand, always gave me dolls—one year she gave me the same doll for my birthday that she gave me for Christmas which was only four months earlier, or designer label items, often rather random ones and usually shoplifted. What does a five year old want with a Gucci scarf? One of her publicist's jobs was to keep track of what stores she went to and pay for anything she stole on the quiet, so the police and more importantly, the media wouldn't get involved." Her face smoothed and went mask-like.

"Your mother's publicist? Who is your mother?" He hadn't lost sight of his real question—what Adele knew about Batman, but this was intriguing.

"I—She's fairly famous. For a while, when she was in her teens, she was the hottest thing going—but that was thirty-five years ago and her star has dimmed a lot since then. Anyhow, you would never have gotten that out of me if it weren't for those blue eyes of yours. I did have a point, and that was: when you know what's in the package, all the mystery is gone and it's not fun anymore. In fact, it's disappointing because of all the things that you're not getting. Not knowing is more interesting than knowing, because then you get to wonder. I never wanted to know who Batman is, and now I think I do. In a way, I think I knew subconsciously all along."

"Who? Who is he?" Edward pleaded, reaching out to her.

"What have you deduced about him?" she countered.

"That he's the biggest hypocrite in the world," the Riddler retorted. "He's the biggest crook of all of us! Whatever money and loot he 'recovers' at crime scenes must go into his own pocket! How else could he afford all those cars and armored suits and gadgets? He'd have to be Bruce Wayne to be able to afford it on his own…Uh. Oh. Wait. It can't be that simple. Can it?"

Adele nodded. "It's like one of those optical illusion pictures where you have to look at the negative space instead of the positive space to see the picture of Jesus or read the words. Once you get it just once, you can never not see it again. I deduced that Batman is an unmarried Caucasian male under forty with certain physical characteristics who inherited great wealth and was orphaned at an early age, very likely at the same time. Bruce Wayne is an unmarried etc., etc.."

"…It can't be that simple." Riddler repeated, shaking his head.

"Why not?" asked Adele, spreading her hands.

"Because…because…Anyway, did you say outright to Strange, "He's Bruce Wayne.'?"

"Oh, no, no. No, I stopped short of that. But I did put the wind up his sails just with what I did say. I was trying to find his Achilles' Heel, you see, and I succeeded. He is as proud and vain about his intellect as some women are of their beauty. Now all I have to do is figure out a way to take it away from him. It's a pity early-onset Alzheimer's isn't communicable, because that would be idea. To have him go through his days knowing his mind is deteriorating slowly, that every little memory lapse is a reason to be afraid he's losing it…Better still if I could throw in violent episodes." Her expression turned dreamy and wistful. "It's going to be such fun working out how. First I'll have to do damage control, though."

"You think you can fix this?" Riddler asked.

"Yes. I'm quite plausible and charming, especially when I'm wearing pink. Just because you're indifferent to my allure doesn't mean that everybody is. I very nearly talked Two-Face into letting me go, and I was dealt a much worse hand then than I've got now. If Batman hadn't shown up to rescue me, in another hour Mr. Dent would have let me walk right out the door.

"Before I'm done," she tipped her head to one side, giving him a dazzling smile, "Strange will believe that among the infinite number of monkeys pecking away at their infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, one of them will sometimes come up with a line of two from Hamlet. And I am such a cute, sweet little marmoset…when I want to be."

She stood up as if to go. "Anyhow, thank you for letting me bask in your presence for a little while. I'll let you get back to work. Enjoy the cookies."

"Ah—Wait. Do you like Italian food? Because there's this little place on 19th street—." Her expression was unreadable.

"You mean you'd like to see me again?" she asked. "To discuss the project, as you said when we parted last time?"

"Yes, exactly. Yes, I would." His heart accelerated as if he were putting a caper into motion, that same rush of adrenaline.

"Then I'm afraid I have to say no. You see, it's no use. If I spend more time with you, even just like today—. I can't help but be attracted to you. I thought I could fight it, but I can't. Spending more time with you will only make things worse. You'd be talking about the data streams, and I'd be sitting there wondering what it would be like to kiss you. Good-bye."

She was gone before he could choose from among all the possible responses he could make. However, once he had opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, he went online to research whatever he could find out about Bruce Wayne. It couldn't be that easy. Honestly, it couldn't!


	12. Icy Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward struggles with his new knowledge.

Some forty-five minutes later, Edward got up out of his chair in something of a stupor. When you knew what to look for, it was obvious Bruce Wayne was Batman. Wayne had been missing for several years; a few months after he returned, the first sightings of Batman began. Bruce Wayne broke his leg 'skiing'—Batman disappeared from the public scene for about as long as it would take for a fracture to heal. Where Wayne went around the globe, Batman followed. He did a lousy job of covering his tracks!

He began to pace the hide out. Downstairs, the test tracks looped around in figure eights, and Edward followed them, thinking. Over and over again, the proofs mounted up in his mind. Even their looks—Batman and Wayne had the same steely jaw with a slight dimple in the chin. Facial recognition software registered a positive match, even though half of Batman's face was covered. Voice analysis bore it out as well. Bruce Wayne was Batman.

The Riddler really wished he didn't know. Because on the heels of that knowledge came—unwelcome thoughts. A realization. When he was matching wits with Batman, who was practically some dark god of thunderous vengeance and misplaced righteousness, well, that was one thing. There was a dignity in that, in standing up to the biggest bully of them all, the one who thought he made the rules for the whole playground.

Even if he did keep getting pounded into the ground.

But now that he knew that behind that mask, inside that armor, was Bruce Wayne… Well, who was Wayne? A rich, offensively handsome asshole. Yeah, so his parents were murdered right in front of him. So? Bruce Wayne was just a man. Batman was just a man.

When he didn't know who Batman was, when Batman might have been anyone, the mystery itself had power.

But the Great and Powerful Oz was only great and powerful until you saw the man behind the curtain.

Edward walked right into a crate, barking his shin hard enough to leave a bruise. He hardly felt it. If Batman was just a man, albeit a very wealthy man who could afford all the gadgets and training needed to make him what he was…

Then who was the Riddler? What was the Riddler? Now those were riddles.

He hadn't set out to become whatever it was he was now. He'd wanted to be Edward Snowden, damn it. The one honest man with the guts to stand up and expose Gotham for what it was, to rip away every whited sepulcher and reveal the putrid festering mess that writhed underneath. He remembered what it felt like when that was his goal, his purpose in life. It had felt fantastic. Good and true and pure—almost holy.

When had he lost that?

Actually, he knew exactly when. First, Black Mask (actually the Joker, although no one knew it at the time) had contacted him with a request that he jam the towers for twenty-four hours starting on Christmas Eve to prevent Batman from using them. The money had been more than good, but it was the challenge which truly appealed to him. Designing and making the bomb and other devices to prevent tampering with the towers, arranging for the installations, finding someone to get rid of the petty crook who did the installing—he couldn't even remember the man's name—all that was more an intellectual exercise than anything real. After all, he wouldn't have to smell the blood or view the bodies.

That was before he ever killed anyone in person, of course. Now it would be different. But back then, it was all happening a comfortably long way away from him…

Until Batman entered the scene, and stole his attention. For the first time, he faced a puzzle he couldn't crack. What motivated him? How could somebody so muscle bound sweep aside all the protections and precautions Edward Nigma— still Nashton, then—put around the towers? What sort of a person puts on a stylized bat costume to go out and fight crime?

What sort of a person wears clothing emblazoned with green question marks to commit crimes and challenge said Bat?

If dressing up as a bat and going around beating people up in the name of justice or vengeance, (take your pick) was ridiculous, then…

His brain shied away from finishing that with the corollary: wearing a lot of green question marks and committing crimes must be really, really stupid. He wasn't ready to go there yet.

For the first time, he understood what Adele meant about the moments of clarity when you saw just how absurd life in Gotham was.

Everything he had wanted, everything he had planned vanished when he came into contact with Batman. In less than twenty-four hours, 'Edward Nashton' had died and 'E. Nigma' had been born. More than a decade had come and gone, and what did he have to show for it? (Other than X-rays of bones broken by the Bat, that is.) He lived in a series of scummy lairs, he had no significant other, nor did he have the adulation of the masses or the respect of his peers—and the closest thing he had to a friend was a guy who frequently went around with a burlap sack over his head.

He felt…naked. Transparent. Fragile. He walked into another crate, stubbing his toe, and again, hardly noticed. (He had some remarkable bruises the next day, and couldn't remember how he got them.)

Then his phone rang. "Hello?" he said, not bothering to look at who it was.

"Hello, Edward," Jonathan Crane said.

"Not now. I think I'm having a moment."

"What sort of moment?" Scarecrow asked. There was a difference between the two, an edge in the voice.

"The icy clarity kind."

"Do you want medication for it?" Crane asked, a little too eagerly

"From you? Never. I know better."

"Your loss, then. What brought this on?" the Master of Fear inquired.

"Adele stopped by with coffee and cookies and we talked."

"She probably thought you were going to starve—she has charitable impulses from time to time," Crane riposted

"As you know from when she bought you new glasses," Edward countered.

"That's rather a low blow," the Scarecrow commented "But I'll let it pass. Adele and I caught a movie together the other night."

Gah! Drop a bomb on me, why don't you? "Really? What did you go see?" Edward asked.

"We didn't go anywhere. The Exorcist was on, so we watched that."

Something didn't quite add up in this picture. "A horror movie? Come on, you? Isn't that like Tiger Woods playing Putt-Putt Golf?"

"A classic of the genre, the subtext of which addresses deeper and more pervasive fears than the fear of the demonic. Adele had a great deal of insight to offer on the mother-daughter relationship. It was quite a stimulating discussion."

"I'll bet. Did all this stimulation take place at your place or hers?" Edward asked casually.

"Ah—well, that is, it was an impromptu—."

"Oh. Don't tell me. You watched at your place and she watched at hers, and you were on the phone or texting each other. That is not a date. You may have permanently friend-zoned yourself there." As if I'm doing any better.

"'Friend-zoned'?" Crane asked.

"Scoff at the phrase all you want. If you ever get around to actually asking her out, see if she doesn't tell you she thinks it'll ruin your friendship." He ended the call.

Okay, so knowing who Batman was killed the fun of challenging him. It was a lot like suddenly discovering you didn't want to play your favorite computer game anymore. Even though you spent hundreds of hours exploring every inch of its world, the day inevitably came when you just didn't feel like playing it anymore. It was time to go on to the next game. Sometimes you never played a particular game again, other times you rediscovered all the things you loved about it in the first place.

Now he needed a new game, that was all, and hadn't Adele been asking him to play from the moment they met? The usual female strategy was to pretend not to be interested regardless of whether she was or wasn't, so she was turning that upside down and playing by not playing,,, unless she really wasn't.

There were so many replies I could have made.. I could have said, 'I know I said you're not my type, but I've had zero success pursuing women who are my type, so I'm going to forget all about 'type' and start fresh.' Or, 'No, I'm asking you out because we have this chemistry going on, and I think it's worth seeing if it lasts.' Or 'You said I couldn't figure you out if I had thirty years to do it in. I'm taking you up on that challenge. How about we start by going out to dinner?'

When she said she'd be sitting there wondering what it would be like to kiss me, I could have said, 'Well, why wonder?', stepped up and kissed her.

Those are pretty good, I need to keep them in mind for later.

So how do I tell her I'm in the game?

I don't see Adele scaling rooftops like Catwoman to find my question marks…

I need to send a message she can't pretend to misconstrue. The usual gesture is to send flowers, right? Not roses, they're a cliché. I can do better than that…

He sat down at his computer and went to work.

A/N:Poor Jonathan. He's trying, though.


	13. The Bechdel Test: Pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those mystified by the title of the chapter, the Bechdel Test refers to a comic by Alison Bechdel. To pass, a work of fiction (movie, TV, book, comic book, whatever) has to have:
> 
> At least two women in it with roles important enough to warrant actual names, (not just Prostitute # 1 or Blonde Waitress).
> 
> These women have to talk to each other.
> 
> Their conversation must be about something other than a man.
> 
> Why is this important? Think of all the works that don't pass it in the superhero genre alone. Batman Begins: nope. The Dark Knight: nope. Captain America: Uh-uh. The Avengers: Not that one either. X-Men First Class: Yes, only because Raven and Angel talk about their powers. Which is about two lines of dialog.
> 
> I could keep going. There is only one major female character in each of those that failed, although at least in The Avengers she gets not only significant screen time, she gets to kick ass too. Go, Whedon! The Bechdel test doesn't mean a work is feminist, but it does mean a work acknowledges that women exist as people outside of their relationships with men. That is important. We need more works that pass the Bechdel Test, and I'm upholding that here in fic-dom.

Swimming was one of the few athletic activities left to Barbara Gordon after she was shot in the spine by the Joker and left paralyzed, and it was also her favorite. She felt least handicapped and helpless with the warm, blue-green tinted waters all around her, embracing her like amniotic fluid in the womb. Several times a week, she went to the gym nearest to her house to do laps, and at least twice a week, a friend of hers from college joined her: Adele Chester.

Today, as they cut through the pool, Barbara found herself thinking more about her friend than usual. It was all because of that article in the paper, the interview about the Pinkney. It brought up certain thoughts and memories going back to the very start of their friendship…

Alike in that they were both intelligent, studious and took college seriously, it was only natural that Adele Chester and Barbara Gordon gravitated towards each other in when they found themselves in a group. Although never best friends, Barbara would unhesitatingly have named Adele as one of the smartest and wittiest people she knew.

If it was strange that the commissioner's daughter should be friends with the daughter of a notorious, albeit reformed gang leader, it was even stranger that Oracle should be friends with the Penguin's daughter, but until she opened up Gothamite magazine one day to a picture of Adele in a twenty thousand dollar evening gown, dancing at the Iceberg with her father, Barbara had no more idea than anyone else as to her true identity.

Afterwards, Barbara had not felt quite the same way toward her, especially in light of something that happened in their freshman year.

Like many colleges and universities, Gotham U. didn't have the best track record when it came to dealing with most sexual assaults. If a student reported that a stranger grabbed her, dragged her into the bushes at knifepoint and raped her, that was one thing—that, the authorities took seriously. But if, as was far more common, she reported that she had been drinking or using drugs, and she wasn't sure what happened after that, then she was apt to wind up in more trouble for partying than the guy was for assaulting her.

Barbara and Adele had both gone to student activist meetings on how to deal with that kind of violence against women on campus, which was of course ironic because neither was the kind of person to go to those sorts of parties, and Barbara wouldn't have any trouble dealing with any attacker anyway. Officially, everything was fine as far as the University was concerned.

Unofficially, certain names were circulated among the savvier young women on campus, names of young men from whom you wouldn't want to accept an open beverage especially when it was late and you were in a dorm room. Many of those names were also among the school's star athletes, and since the school's basketball team, the Gotham Knights—the male basketball team—was very important to the school, that made them even more untouchable. Barbara was ready to do something about the situation as Batgirl, but someone else intervened.

The morning after the championship postgame celebrations, the captain of the Knights was found in his bedroom, only marginally conscious, on his hands and knees. His wrists had been duct-taped together, and he was naked. Someone had written 'You know you want it, slut!' on his back with permanent marker, and…he had been subjected to what the police report called 'foreign object penetration', apparently with a cucumber.

At the time, however, and for more than a week, all that was said about it on campus was that someone had pranked him when he was passed out drunk, a not uncommon occurrence. There were even websites dedicated to photos of passed out people whose erstwhile friends had stacked things on them, swathed them in plastic wrap, scribbled on them with make-up or markers. That someone had also stolen his phone, and much noise was made among the team members about what they were going to do when they caught up with the thief.

A week later, the phone arrived at the police station. On it were photos, extremely graphic photos, of over a dozen female students, most of whom were unconscious or glassy-eyed from drugs. Most of the photos included the captain. Some of them included several of the team members, both singly and in groups. Moreover, there were notes accompanying the photos with incredibly damning details about the crimes—for they were crimes—and forensic analysis proved the entries and photos had been added gradually over two years' time, not uploaded all at once as they would have been if the evidence were planted. The last series of photos were of the captain himself. They were just as graphic as those of the girls, but there was no one else in them. They showed the duck tape, the humiliating position, the writing….and the cucumber.

The notes which accompanied those photos were, 'I gave you a week to confess. You chose to pretend all this would go away if you ignored me. Now I've uploaded certain choice pics of you to a dozen sites, and they won't ever go away. Even if the police do nothing, your degradation and shame will live on forever.'

The part of Barbara that was the crime fighter said: Nobody should be treated like that. That's a sex crime too. But the woman in her said: Good. He got what he deserved.

It was the worst scandal in Gotham State University's history, but once the smoke cleared, after all the firings, the arrests, the expulsions, the bans, and the law suits had come and gone, the University now took a very strong stance against sexual assault and investigated every single report assiduously. All students had to take a seminar every year on the subject where they learned that drunkenness did not equal consent, among other things, (athletes had to attend two such seminars) and anyone accused of assault had to surrender all phones, tablets, computers, and other such devices immediately. There was also a new victim counseling center on campus. All of which were positive things, but…

As part of the investigation, because while the police investigated the rapes committed by the captain and his friends, they were also investigating the rape of the captain and the theft of his phone, Barbara, as one of the girls who had both been to the student activist meetings and been seen at the party, was called in for questioning. Adele was too. They had commiserated about it later, and at the time, no doubts about Adele's innocence in the matter had ever crossed Barbara's mind.

But when she found out who Adele's father was—then she became suspicious. She knew what the Penguin did to people who offended him. What someone had done to the captain was not nearly as bad as being shut up alive inside a hot oven, but it was akin to it. That so-appropriate, amusing streak of cruelty was enough like Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot to arouse her suspicion.

And yet she had no reason to suspect Adele, other than that she was his daughter. Of course Adele couldn't have done it alone—not when she was only about five feet tall and delicately built—but she could have had help, or could have ordered it done. No doubt there were those among the Penguin's thugs who would have eagerly done it for free.

By the time she learned Adele was Cobblepot's daughter, she was paralyzed and chair bound. You soon learned who your real friends were when you were suddenly no longer able to go out and have fun with them like you used to—no more dancing, no jogging, no partying, plus the perceived burden of having to help her do certain things, some of them embarrassingly intimate—all that meant some people dropped her, hard and fast.

Adele hadn't. That counted for a lot. Yet Barbara still had suspicions, reinforced by the things she knew as Oracle. Cobblepot was still the Penguin, only now his operations were quieter, quiet enough that Batman would overlook them in favor of chasing bigger, deadlier game. Did Adele know? Was she a part of was going on?

A flicker of movement drew Barbara's eye. Adele waved at her from the other end of the pool. Barbara dove under, mermaid-wriggled to bob up beside her. "Was that a hundred already?" she asked the smaller girl.

"Uh-huh. I'm ready for a blood sugar boost. How about you?"

"Sure." With the lifeguard's help, Barbara got back into her chair, and they went to change in the locker room. Neither paid much attention to the woman who quietly hoisted herself out of the water to follow them.

Barbara studied Adele's expression as they dried their freshly washed hair, quite a time-consuming task when you had a mane like Barbara's. She kept shifting from creased-brow thoughtfulness to a flash of naughty amusement, and finally the redhead asked.

"So what's up with you? Your mood's changing more than Two-face's on a bad day."

Adele chuckled in appreciation. "Good one. I was thinking…I wish my dad would get married."

Barbara changed a hoot of laughter into an awkward cough. "Wha—Why? Why is that?"

"Because after years of a dating desert, there are two potential boyfriends on my horizon, and if I'm going to have someone in my life, I'd feel better if my dad had someone in his life too."

"Two guys with boyfriend potential? Oh, I've got to hear about them." Barbara looked with renewed interest at Adele.

"Well, the emphasis is still on potential, because as yet I've gone out with neither. Um, I don't want to name names until I've spurred them around the yard a few times, or next time you'll be asking 'How's Tom?' and I'll be asking 'Who?' So let's call them Bachelor #1 and Bachelor #2. Both are intelligent, interesting, kind of nerdy, and blue-eyed."

"Just your type, in other words."

"That's the problem. I'm not the sort of girl who treats men like shoes—buy both and wear them on alternate days. I'd like something long-term. Maybe even for the long haul. So, Bachelor #1 is a bit repressed. I don't think he's ever had a serious girlfriend. He may even be completely unexperienced."

"Ooh," Barbara wondered. "That has its good points and its bad points. On the one hand, you'd have to teach him everything—but on the other—."

"You'd get to teach him everything," they said in unison.

"Right!" Adele went on. "No bad habits picked up from exes."

"How old is he?" Barbara asked.

"Mid-thirties," she shrugged. "They both are, actually. Anyhow, # 1 is, as I said, a bit repressed. He's trying to work his way up to asking me out, but the closest he's gotten to it is watching a movie together."

"Why doesn't that count?"

"Each of us was at home. Our own homes." Adele rolled her eyes. "When he suggested we both watch it, I asked him if he wanted to come over. I told him I'd like it if he came over. He turned down the offer. If he weren't so endearingly awkward about it, I'd just drop him from the list, but he is rather sweet."

"What about Bachelor # 2?" Barbara worked at a knot in her hair.

"He was short off the mark at first, but he's showing signs of catching up." Adele suddenly dimpled up. "Last night I came home to find a bouquet from him."

"Roses are always nice, but a bit unimaginative," Barbara frowned; the tangle was persistent.

"Ah, that's the best part. He didn't send me roses. He sent irises, white camellias, viscaria, and a box of dates."

"What?" Barbara resorted to biting through the hair above the problem.

"Ever hear of the Language of Flowers? 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance'? It was a way of sending messages to your beloved. I had to look them up on line; the only one I knew off the top of my head was that Iris was the messenger of the gods. So: Irises equal 'a message', white camellias mean 'You're adorable', Viscaria—that was a real stumper—asks a question. "Will you dance with me?' That's the only flower which does ask a question, so I guess he had to go with that, but it can also mean, 'I'm stuck on you', or 'You've ensnared me', because the stems are sticky enough to catch and hold small insects. The dates—well, they're dates. How much deeper a meaning do they need?"

"That is…Wow. That is one of the most original and romantic things I've ever heard of. Either that or else the Riddler's involved." (Barbara missed Adele's very slight smile at that.) "That catapults Bachelor # 2 ahead as far as I'm concerned. What does Viscaria look like, anyway?"

"They're very simple—wildflowers, actually—in shades of blue, pink, lavender and white. Five petals around a contrasting eye, grey green stems and leaves with sticky hairs, like the stem of a dandelion. Anyhow, I left a message, so I'm waiting on his return call. It's up to him to follow up." Adele dimpled again. "And he is not completely inexperienced, if I know anything about how to read men."

Barbara laughed. "So you don't want your dad to be lonely. That's really nice, but doesn't he have his, ah, assistants?"

"He does, and they've mostly been great gals. I keep in touch with some of them. The ones that haven't been—I know how to deal with them. But if I'm going to have a stepmother, I want her to be someone with more depth." Adele's shorter hair was nearly dry, so she leapt up to style it in front of a mirror.

"Do you have someone in mind?" Barbara's attention was caught by someone she saw reflected in the mirror at the back of the locker room. If she didn't know better, she recognized that woman.

"Diantha Dimonte," Adele replied.

"I don't know who that is," Her attention returned to Adele.

"A chef, restaurant owner and cookbook author. She's on the Food Network a lot. She's really cute and I like her personality. All right, I know actually convincing Diantha Dimonte to move to Gotham and marry my dad is a little unrealistic, but someone like her—attractive, not that young, comfortably well off, has an interesting career which she's serious about—and if she could also see in him what I do, only as a wife and not as a daughter—that's who I'd like to see marry my dad."

"You know," Barbara's attention shifted back to the mirror, because the woman was hovering around the point where she could listen in on their conversation, "as a grown daughter of a single dad myself—could you find one like that for mine, too?"

Adele laughed, and then the hovering woman stepped forward.

"And one for mine as well. I, too have an unpartnered father. Perhaps we should start a dating service? Ah, forgive me. My name is Joie Ducard."

Maybe she had ID saying that was her name, but Barbara knew her better as Talia Al Ghul.

A/N: Duh-duh-dun! So was Adele responsible for what happened to the captain of the basketball team? You'll have to wait for next chapter to find out.


	14. The Bechdel Test: Pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second half!

Barbara's first thought was, 'Talia knows who I am?!', but her second was 'She wore that to swim in a gym pool?' There are swimsuits that are for swimming in, and then there are swimsuits that are meant for lying around on a chaise by the pool while Adonis-like pool boys bring you tall cold drinks, and Talia's tiny crocheted bikini fell into the second category. The third thought was more a realization: She is not interested in me. It's Adele she's here for.

Why?

In the meantime, Adele blinked once, and replied, "I'm sorry. I had no idea we were loud enough to disturb anyone. Ready to go, Babs?"

The cut direct! "Ready enough," she replied, tucking her hair dryer in her gym bag. "Shall we hit the juice bar on the way out?"

Talia looked nonplussed. Barbara had always thought that men were so much the focus of her universe that other women barely registered, and this confirmed it. Women were Talia's servants or they were her rivals, never her friends. Maybe nobody had ever given her the brush-off before. She tried again. "You didn't disturb me. I'm sorry. I haven't been in Gotham long, and have yet to make any friends here."

"I'm sure you will, in time," Adele gave her a nice smile before turning to Barbara again. "The juice bar it is!"

Talia did not pursue them as they left the locker room, and once the door closed behind them, Barbara took a deep breath, and began, "That woman—," then stopped. How could she tell Adele what she knew about Talia without revealing a lot more than she meant to?

Adele remarked dismissively as they crossed the lobby to the juice bar, "Eurotrash. And wearing more make up to swim in than I wear at midnight in the club. We get her sort in the Iceberg all the time. Unless…" her eyes narrowed, "there's something you know that I don't."

"I might," Oracle admitted, "She's the daughter of an extremely powerful and unethical man." She ordered a Berry Blowout power shake.

"Some might say the same of me, only without the 'extremely' part," Adele dimpled up, and placed her order for a Tropical Oasis protein blend. "What level of power are we talking about here? Local? State? Regional?"

"Global," Barbara replied. "Probably comparable to the Pope in terms of resources and followers, only with lethal intentions."

"That sounds…Hmm. You know this how?" Adele raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I can't explain."

"Hmm," Adele repeated. "You know, it's so nice out—let's take our juices and drink them in the park on the corner. Who knows how many more days we'll have like this?"

"Sounds good to me," Barbara replied.

It was indeed a lovely fall afternoon, the sky that rich intensity of blue reserved for autumn, when it will contrast best with the coppers, crimsons and golds of the leaves. They settled down at one of the tables with a chessboard permanently inlaid in the concrete, Adele on the seat provided, and Barbara at a right angle in her chair.

Seemingly apropos of nothing, Adele remarked, "When I was a teen, I mostly lived inside my head." She took a sip of juice. "I wove this whole story of what my life would be like when I moved to Gotham City and met my father. A lot of it was just castles in the air—you really don't want to know what I fantasized about Batman back then—but in my daydreams, Gotham was this wonderful place, sparklingly clean and brightly colored, very Pop Art, where Batman and the Rogues played a nonstop game of Capes and Robbers, and nobody ever really got hurt."

"That sounds like a wonderful world," Barbara looked down at her useless legs. "I wish we lived in it."

"So do I. My real hero was Batgirl. After all, she was just my age, and a girl, too! In my daydream, we would of course be friends, even though she and I were on opposite sides—this was back before my dad was reformed—because we really had a lot in common. You see, even though I might have a criminal mind, I also have a good heart, and I would never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, and I especially wouldn't be involved in anything that hurt children. So we had this secret pact that whenever one of us learned something the other really ought to know, she'd pass it along. And whatever happened, we'd stay friends."

Barbara' hackles began to raise. Was Adele really trying to—? Surely not. "So what happened when you got to Gotham City found out what it was really like? Disappointment and disillusionment?"

"No, nothing of the kind, because I was finally living rather than waiting and daydreaming. I knew Gotham would be dirty and violent, I knew the people would be sordid and not so much fun. Where I grew up, we were always tripping over minor and not so minor celebrities behaving rather badly, completely unlike their on-screen personas. When you see the guy girls all across America are writing poems about, staggering around with a glass of rum in his hand before falling to his knees and vomiting copiously into the pool—. Anyhow, the thing that made me saddest was that Batgirl disappeared just a couple of years after I moved here."

"Really?" Barbara knew there was an edge in her voice, but as much as she wanted to just roll off and end the conversation, she also had to stay and find out exactly where this was going. "I mean, I know she disappeared, but for that to be your biggest disappointment—."

"It was," Adele nodded, taking a sip of juice. "Any number of things could have happened to her. I mean, she might have decided what she really wanted to do was open a cupcake bakery, or maybe she was going to have a baby, or she got killed saving the world in one of these recurring crises. Or maybe, since this is the real world where people really do get hurt, maybe the Joker shot her and left her paralyzed."

Silence. Silence. Silence.

"Nobody else has a head of hair quite like yours, and is also five foot ten with a dancer's build," Adele said into the gap. "Batgirl vanished from the scene exactly when you were shot. Exactly. We are both too intelligent for a simple denial to work."

"Was staying my friend part of your master plan to take over the underworld some day?" Barbara almost didn't recognize her own voice.

"No. I don't have a master plan to take over the underworld. I don't think it can be done, for one thing, and even if it could be and I could do it, I am sure it would not make me happy. All I really want is to hang on to the Pinkney, for my dad to live a long, safe, happy life, and maybe to find somebody who thinks a sentence of thirty years to life with me is a pretty good deal. And, you know, it's hard to have a good life without friends to share it with."

"I see."

"Of course, since I've also admitted to having a criminal mind, I strongly suggest taking whatever I say with a grain of salt." Adele added. "I certainly do."

Barbara considered the situation and sipped juice. "Adele—in our freshman year, what happened to the captain of the Knights—were you involved?"

"Yes. I planned it. I was there. I gave the orders, and I watched. I took the pictures and I stole his phone. I sent him several threatening messages. Ultimately I sent the phone to the police. I am not sorry I did it, and I would do it over again the exact same way." Adele's normally cheerful face became stony for that moment.

"I've wondered about that for six years." Barbara wondered if she should feel more shocked than she did. "You had help, of course. How did you sneak them on to campus?"

"Easy. I didn't bring a couple of musclebound thugs. I asked Dad's current pair of assistants, and they were really into the idea. After I gave them a makeunder, you could hardly tell them from any other female students, except that they were hotter than most. Certainly hotter than me, so I let them be the lures to get him away from the party and up to his room. Then they roofied him for a change, and the rest you know."

"Were you one of his victims?" Barbara asked.

"Me? No. But do you remember my original roommate, Faith?"

"Yes…" Barbara's eidetic memory pulled up a face to match the name. Beautiful dark blond hair, brown eyes, blushed a lot, bubbly.

"She was homeschooled for religious reasons, so going to Gotham U. was her first step out into the secular world. Some people made fun of her for being so godly, but I didn't mind. Better that than a pot-head or a sex addict. Except on Sunday mornings, when she always woke me up to see if I wanted to go to church with her, that bugged me a little. Faith had the faith of a child, though. She believed—I mean, really, deep down to bedrock, believed that Jesus would not let anything bad happen to her."

"And then she went to one of those parties," Barbara supplied the next line.

"Yes. Very early the next morning, I woke up to someone crashing around in the hallway. It was Faith. She had her top on all wrong and she couldn't even get the key in the door. I almost made her go to the campus clinic, but she said she just wanted to sleep, nothing was wrong, and to leave her alone. She was eight inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than I was, so I couldn't exactly force her. I went back to bed, and a few hours later she was back to normal. Then a few weeks later, she threw up in the center of the room one morning, and she threw up again the next morning, and the next."

"She was pregnant."

"Uh-huh. Though she didn't believe it until I bought a pregnancy test and barred her in the bathroom until she used it and stuck it back under the door to show me. She had a hysterical fit and broke the sink when she saw the result."

Barbara smiled at that, not happily. "Bet you didn't get your security deposit back."

"No, but it gets worse. Her family was very pro-life, but also even more pro-premarital abstinence. She was more afraid of telling them what happened than she was of God's wrath over aborting the fetus. I guess God would forgive her, but her parents never would. Even though she didn't even remember anything. Even though she was raped.

"However, if she went to a clinic anywhere in the area, there was the chance that one of the protesters would be from their church. They might even be a family member. So she snuck away to this horrible place in Allentown, Pennsylvania—there was an article about it in the New Yorker recently. Technically, it was legal, but there were so many code violations—anyhow, in the middle of the night, I got this call from her. She was in this flea-bag motel there, and she was sick.

"So I drove all the way to Allentown, found her half-dead with an infection because they didn't scrape out all the placenta, and got her to a hospital. She lived, but she lost her faith—that real, pure, child-like faith. All that was left of this lively, loving, trusting person was this grim dogmatic shell, all the bitter, intolerant, negative aspects of religion. She left Gotham U. and switched to a religious college. I never heard from her again."

"Was it the captain who did that to her?" Barbara asked, quietly.

"She had no idea. I chose him to be the example because he was the captain, because he set the standards of behavior among the jocks. Punishing him would send a very clear message, and if he wasn't guilty of raping Faith, he was sure guilty of something. As it happened, she wasn't among the pictures on his phone. So now you know.

"Oh, I said I never heard from her again, but I did see her a few months ago. Every now and then, we get these religious groups who invade the museum, kneel down in the halls and pray because we promote Darwin's theories of evolution without a balancing counterargument for creationism. The last time that happened, I saw Faith among them. She had a couple of kids with her, so I guess she got married and had a family, which was what she really wanted. She didn't look happy, though. She didn't look happy at all."

"Thank you for telling me that." Barbara considered a moment. "Is all that true?"

"Yes," Adele replied. "I have no proof, but it's true."

They sat there in silence for a while. A few scarlet maple leaves drifted down and a jet left vapor trails across the cerulean sky.

"'Joie Ducard's real name is Talia Al Ghul…"


End file.
